Les militaires français quittent Kigali au moment où le Front patriotique rwandais y fait son entrée

Masure, Bruno

Boisserie, Philippe

13 avril 1994

19940413

20:00:00

CEST

Journal de 20 heures

Les militaires français quittent Kigali au moment où le Front patriotique rwandais y fait son entrée

Michel Roussin a confirmé devant l'Assemblée nationale la mort de deux gendarmes français et de l'épouse de l'un d'entre eux.

ScriptFrance2JournalDe20Heures13041994.pdf

19987 bytes

2

France 2

INA

Transcription d'une émission de télévision

FR

- In Rwanda thousands of civilians continue to flee the massacres as fighting seems to intensify in the capital Kigali between rebels and government forces.
- The Minister for Cooperation, Michel Roussin, today confirmed before the National Assembly the death of two French gendarmes and the wife of one of them. While François Léotard informed the Senators of the departure, at the end of the afternoon, of the last French company.
- The French soldiers left Kigali when the Rwandan Patriotic Front made its entry. Operation Amaryllis to evacuate foreigners ended. With 120 of his men, Colonel Poncet, who led it, left at the nightfall while all around the airport the cannon thunder.
- Only 50 French soldiers remain on the spot. Their mission: to support the Belgian and Italian soldiers, to recover their nationals still stranded in the four corners of the country. The two warring parties have promised to allow these operations to take place. The only condition: that everyone leaves within 48 hours.
- The Rwandans will therefore settle their accounts among themselves. And it seems that the Tutsi minority in the RPF is about to take power. Their breakthroughs are spectacular. They would only wait for the departure of the foreign soldiers to launch the final assault. The country then risks reliving these terrible scenes of massacre: the executioners of yesterday, the Hutu, before the victims.
- How in these conditions can any future be envisaged for this country? A country where already 500,000 people are threatened with hunger, where at least 30% of the population has AIDS. A country where thousands of people are already beginning to take refuge in neighboring countries.
- This evening, a few more orphans were evacuated from Kigali. They at least will one day be able to know the meaning of the word hope.

The 20 o'clock news of France 2 of April 13, 1994 is visible in its entirety here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g64JF-ATeLM