Citation
PARIS, April 11 (Reuter) - France evacuated the last of its nationals
wanting to leave war-torn Rwanda on Monday and French soldiers will
stay to help other foreigners in the capital Kigali, the foreign
ministry said.
Ministry spokesman Richard Duque told reporters that 620 French people
had left the central African country, most of them aboard French
military planes.
A few French nationals, including a small number of religious workers,
had chosen to stay, he said.
The mission of our military is strictly humanitarian. Their aim is to
enable our compatriots to leave. We are also helping foreign nationals
who are in difficulty in Kigali,
Duque said.
France has said its soldiers would not intervene in the fighting and
would leave as soon as all Westerners had been evacuated.
Duque said the French embassy was still operating and that France was
ready to contribute if necessary to a dialogue between rival forces.
Western nations rushed to get their nationals out of Rwanda after an
orgy of tribal violence, unleashed by the killing of Rwandan President
Juvenal Habyarimana last week, killed many thousands of people.
A first group of 43 French citizens evacuated from Kigali arrived at
Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris late on Sunday.
Wrapped in green airline blankets, some said they remained holed up at
home in terror through the fighting until French soldiers arrived and
took them to Kigali airport.
Others said the Westerners' neighbourhoods were spared and they did not
witness any violence. They kept in touch through a radio network set up
by the French embassy after earlier tribal clashes in the city four
years ago.
Some prominent Rwandans took refuge at the French embassy and
Cooperation Minister Michel Roussin said they would be protected.
Among those flown out were 88 orphaned children, some of whom are in
the process of being adopted by families in France.
Some of them have seen war two or three times. They have seen many
dead,
a priest accompanying them told French radio.
Rwanda's ambassador in Paris appealed for massive help
for people
affected by the fighting, but said that calm was gradually returning to
Kigali. The forces of order are firmly neutralising the last groups of
pillagers and other criminals,
ambassador Jean-Marie Vianney
Ndagijimana said in a statement.
Nathalie Feuillet, a doctor in Kigali with the French medical charity
Medecins Sans Frontieres, said it was impossible to operate on those
who had been seriously injured in the fighting.
It's absolutely impossible to work. It's extremely dangerous. For MSF
the decision has been taken. We are evacuating everybody (who is
seriously injured),
she told France-Info radio.
She said the main hospital was a big charnel-house with many, many
dead and a few patients, some 50 or so. Most of them are very seriously
injured and cannot wait for surgery.
About 500 French paratroops were involved in the evacuation of French
nationals, codenamed Amaryllis
. Belgian paratroops also arrived in
Kigali to help to rescue their 1,500 fellow countrymen, the largest
Western group in Rwanda.
France maintained about 300 soldiers in Rwanda for several years until
they were replaced by U.N. troops last December.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
