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September 3, 2026
Christiane Berthiaume, porte-parole du HCR : « C'est un exode de dimension biblique. On n'a jamais vu ça de toute l'histoire du HCR »
Card Number 36545
Number
36545
Author
Hintermann, Mémona
Author
Peaster, Philippe
Date
19 juillet 1994
Ymd
19940719
Time
23:00:00
Time zone
CEST
Uptitle
Journal de 23 heures
Title
Christiane Berthiaume, porte-parole du HCR : « C'est un exode de dimension biblique. On n'a jamais vu ça de toute l'histoire du HCR »
Subtitle
Face à l'exode du siècle, les organisations internationales crient au secours.
Size
28648 bytes
Pages nb.
4
Source
Public records
Type
Transcription d'une émission de télévision
Language
FR
Abstract
- In international news, the focus remains on Rwanda. A new government was sworn in today in Kigali. General Kagame, the RPF chief of staff, holds the key portfolio: defense. He is also Vice President. He has pledged to punish those responsible for the massacres.
- France recognizes the RPF's victory.
- Meanwhile, Rwanda continues to sink into a terrible nightmare: the country is literally emptying of its population, and faced with the exodus of the century, international organizations are crying out for help.
- A child and mother lie side by side, dead from exhaustion and dehydration. It is the end of the road, too, for scores of others, the youngest or the weakest.
- We are at the Kibumba camp, one of the makeshift camps hastily set up by humanitarian organizations to relieve congestion in Goma, the border town on the Zaire side. Samantha Bolton of Doctors Without Borders says: "The problem here is that they are exhausted after weeks and weeks of walking across Rwanda. They are dying before they even arrive. The major challenge is managing to bring in enough water."
- It is impossible to bury the dead here; the volcanic soil is too hard. So, following thirst and hunger, epidemics now pose a threat. Humanitarian organizations are overwhelmed: in less than a week, the Goma region has been swamped by a tide of refugees, and the flow continues.
- With over a million people in Goma and 500,000 in the Bukavu region further south, Rwanda has literally emptied of its population in just a few weeks. Spread across Zaire, Burundi, and Uganda, nearly three million of them are outside the country, out of a total population of seven million.
- Here on the Zairian side, aid is arriving only in dribs and drabs. Today, just 60 tons of food arrived. Yet 500 tons a day are needed. Transporting that amount is impossible due to logistical problems; Goma airport, for instance, cannot handle it.
- Christiane Berthiaume, UNHCR spokesperson: "In just a few days, more than 1,600,000 refugees have left Rwanda for Zaire. Of that number, one million have arrived in Goma. It is an exodus of biblical proportions, something never before seen in the history of the UNHCR. Furthermore, these people have arrived in a very difficult region where it is impossible to settle them. […] We need to be able to deliver food aid very quickly. Our primary concern right now is the water supply. These people need 30 million liters of water, and we need enough tanker trucks. We would need 50 of them to transport water from the rivers to the refugees. Yet we have only eight. We also need to launch an airlift very quickly to transport between 600 and 800 tons of food per day. That is three times the amount we were transporting during the worst of the war in Sarajevo. […] There is a very high risk of epidemics. We have found sites where these people can be settled, but the sites are inadequate; the ground is rocky. How are we supposed to build latrines? There are already cases of dysentery, and cholera is endemic in this region. […] The only viable solution is for these people to be able to return home. The vast majority are Hutus who fled the advance of the Rwandan Patriotic Front forces. They are afraid to return home because they fear reprisals. They fear the vicious cycle of vengeance, fearing they might be massacred in turn because their ethnic group massacred others. Therefore, what is needed, the only solution, is for the newly installed government to guarantee the safety of this population. They must promise to take measures to prevent acts of revenge, to halt this hellish cycle, and to ensure that the massacres cease once and for all".
- France recognizes the RPF's victory.
- Meanwhile, Rwanda continues to sink into a terrible nightmare: the country is literally emptying of its population, and faced with the exodus of the century, international organizations are crying out for help.
- A child and mother lie side by side, dead from exhaustion and dehydration. It is the end of the road, too, for scores of others, the youngest or the weakest.
- We are at the Kibumba camp, one of the makeshift camps hastily set up by humanitarian organizations to relieve congestion in Goma, the border town on the Zaire side. Samantha Bolton of Doctors Without Borders says: "The problem here is that they are exhausted after weeks and weeks of walking across Rwanda. They are dying before they even arrive. The major challenge is managing to bring in enough water."
- It is impossible to bury the dead here; the volcanic soil is too hard. So, following thirst and hunger, epidemics now pose a threat. Humanitarian organizations are overwhelmed: in less than a week, the Goma region has been swamped by a tide of refugees, and the flow continues.
- With over a million people in Goma and 500,000 in the Bukavu region further south, Rwanda has literally emptied of its population in just a few weeks. Spread across Zaire, Burundi, and Uganda, nearly three million of them are outside the country, out of a total population of seven million.
- Here on the Zairian side, aid is arriving only in dribs and drabs. Today, just 60 tons of food arrived. Yet 500 tons a day are needed. Transporting that amount is impossible due to logistical problems; Goma airport, for instance, cannot handle it.
- Christiane Berthiaume, UNHCR spokesperson: "In just a few days, more than 1,600,000 refugees have left Rwanda for Zaire. Of that number, one million have arrived in Goma. It is an exodus of biblical proportions, something never before seen in the history of the UNHCR. Furthermore, these people have arrived in a very difficult region where it is impossible to settle them. […] We need to be able to deliver food aid very quickly. Our primary concern right now is the water supply. These people need 30 million liters of water, and we need enough tanker trucks. We would need 50 of them to transport water from the rivers to the refugees. Yet we have only eight. We also need to launch an airlift very quickly to transport between 600 and 800 tons of food per day. That is three times the amount we were transporting during the worst of the war in Sarajevo. […] There is a very high risk of epidemics. We have found sites where these people can be settled, but the sites are inadequate; the ground is rocky. How are we supposed to build latrines? There are already cases of dysentery, and cholera is endemic in this region. […] The only viable solution is for these people to be able to return home. The vast majority are Hutus who fled the advance of the Rwandan Patriotic Front forces. They are afraid to return home because they fear reprisals. They fear the vicious cycle of vengeance, fearing they might be massacred in turn because their ethnic group massacred others. Therefore, what is needed, the only solution, is for the newly installed government to guarantee the safety of this population. They must promise to take measures to prevent acts of revenge, to halt this hellish cycle, and to ensure that the massacres cease once and for all".