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August 8, 2023 French

À Kigali les habitants commencent à ressortir de chez eux et à raconter les massacres

Card Number 29125

Number
29125
Author
Poivre d'Arvor, Patrick
Author
Allémonière, Patricia
Author
Marque, Isabelle
Date
7 juillet 1994
Ymd
19940707
Time
20:00:00
Time zone
CEST
Uptitle
Journal de 20 heures
Title
À Kigali les habitants commencent à ressortir de chez eux et à raconter les massacres
Subtitle
Dans la région de Gikongoro, une patrouille de l'armée française a découvert des milliers de réfugiés hutu mais aussi des Tutsi apeurés.
Size
24457 bytes
Pages nb.
3
Source
TF1
Public records
INA
Type
Transcription d'une émission de télévision
Language
FR
Abstract
- In Rwanda the future Prime Minister responsible for forming a government of national unity believes that the French engaged in Operation Turquoise must have left the country at the end of July, as promised.
- For the time being, the first UN planes have started landing again in Kigali, conquered by the RPF. Gradually, residents begin to come out of their homes and tell about the massacres.
- They come out of their hiding places, they survived the massacres. They leave behind their bruised, abandoned, plundered city. The RPF soldiers asked them to regroup for security reasons. At Saint-André college, there are nearly 20,000. A refugee: "My whole family was massacred by government troops".
- Some responsible for the massacres who did not have time to flee would hide in the middle of the crowd. In any case, that's what everyone says. But here for now, no one is thinking of revenge. The pain is too much.
- Three-quarters of the country are under RPF control. The North-West still seems to be under the control of Hutu militiamen and the South-West under French surveillance.
- The rumor reached Gikongoro: children and a Rwandan priest are threatened in a village in the hills. Three days after their installation, the French decide to make a reconnaissance. This is the first time they have visited this region, 50 kilometers from the city. First surprise: the incredible number of villagers on the roads. They are tens of thousands with their children, their cattle, all their belongings. It is no longer a flight but an exodus. The soldiers are inquiring.
- They are fleeing the fighting in the east of the country. Most of them are Hutu. Among them, there are surely people who have killed and massacred but they deny themselves to be all accomplices.
- After many twists and turns, we finally find Father Emmanuel [Uwayezu]. He explains that his college was attacked in May by armed men. The remaining students must be evacuated. The others, around sixty Tutsi, have disappeared. Father Emmanuel, "Priest of Kibeho": "There were a few children that we took, mostly girls and some boys. We took them from school. We certainly killed them or else the others ran away. But they weren't killed here".
- We will learn that a young Tutsi girl saw all the boys massacred with machetes and clubs. The Father went to fetch her from a Hutu peasant who took pity on her after having kidnapped her. Another recounts in a barely audible voice that the girls were taken to be raped. We do not know what became of them. Finally, the last survivors of the horror: a young girl and a driver, Tutsi that the Father has been hiding at his home for weeks.
- Today is finally deliverance for this small group. And the end of the nightmare for Father Emmanuel. A Hutu who took all the risks to save these innocent people from murderous madness.
Comment
On Father Emmanuel Uwayezu, see the African Rights report of May 2009.