Des milliers d'habitants fuient Kigali par crainte de nouveaux massacres. Les rebelles devraient en effet prendre le contrôle de la capitale dans les tous prochains jours

Masure, Bruno

Klotz, Jean-Christophe

24 mai 1994

19940524

20:00:00

CEST

Journal de 20 heures [3:27]

Des milliers d'habitants fuient Kigali par crainte de nouveaux massacres. Les rebelles devraient en effet prendre le contrôle de la capitale dans les tous prochains jours

Ceux qui ont échappé aux massacres commis par les milices extrémistes hutu sont maintenant victimes des bombardements aveugles des artilleurs du FPR.

1994-05-24-20fr2.mp4

11204162 bytes

France 2

INA

Journal télévisé

FR

- In Rwanda it is more than ever the trip to the end of hell. Thousands of Kigali residents are fleeing the capital for fear of new massacres. The rebels should indeed take control of Kigali in the next few days.
- On Thursday [May 26], the magazine "Envoyé Spécial" will broadcast a document produced by journalists from the CAPA agency. A document filmed in an orphanage in Kigali managed somehow by a French aid worker, Marc Vaiter, who refused to abandon his children in a city ravaged by civil war.
- After six weeks of nightmare, Kigali is today transformed into a gigantic refugee camp. More than 4,000 people are crammed into this downtown hospital with no water or electricity.
- Those who escaped the massacres committed by extremist Hutu militias are now victims of the indiscriminate bombardments of the gunners of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, which is tightening its grip around the city. Everywhere the same testimonies, the same distress: this woman lost a child in the bombardments, the three others are seriously injured here.
- Outside the massacres continue. Hutu militiamen ransacked the city in search of the last living Tutsis hiding in Kigali. While waiting for the reinforcements promised by the Security Council, the few Blue Helmets present are protecting as best they can pockets of the civilian population where Hutu and Tutsi have taken refuge indiscriminately. Question: what can the Blue Helmets do in the event of a massive attack by Hutu killers? General Henry Kwami Anyidoho, No. 2 of the United Nations force in Rwanda: "We hope they will not attack. We have succeeded in protecting these people so far. We will continue. We will continue to protect them. protect until things get better".
- In the devastated city center, 70 orphans live holed up inside their homes. They are reduced to digging a shelter on the ground. They only owe their lives to the continued presence at their side of Marc Vaiter, the manager of this orphanage.
- In the early hours of the massacres, when the French soldiers came to evacuate him, Marc Vaiter refused to abandon the children. They now share their fate. Marc Vaiter: "We are so threatened, every day. We never know if we will spend the night or if we will not be forced out. We are very tense".
- At the other end of the city center, Father Blanchard also lives cut off in his parish. The missionary who has lived in Rwanda for 30 years opened his church to hundreds of refugees when the massacres broke out. The next day, soldiers and militiamen forced the doors: 15 people were killed before his eyes. Henri Blanchard: "I saw people killed sometimes by bullets, sometimes by stab wounds, sometimes by clubbing. It was unbearable".

The 20 o'clock news of France 2 of May 24, 1994 is visible in its entirety here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPQyL1zizi0