Les Français organisent l'évacuation de leurs ressortissants du Rwanda. 400 parachutistes français venus de Centrafrique se sont déployés autour de l'aéroport

Coudenhove, Anne (de)

Chabod, Alain

Maertens, Jean-Luc

9 avril 1994

19940409

23:00:00

CEST

Journal de 23 heures

Les Français organisent l'évacuation de leurs ressortissants du Rwanda. 400 parachutistes français venus de Centrafrique se sont déployés autour de l'aéroport

Cet après-midi, les combats se sont intensifiés dans Kigali où la situation reste très confuse.

ScriptFrance3JournalDe23Heures09041994.pdf

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France 3

INA

Transcription d'une émission de télévision

FR

- The ongoing war in Rwanda. The rebels reject the interim government. They march on Kigali, the capital, where fighting has resumed after a short lull.
- The French, like the Belgians or the Americans, organize the evacuation of their nationals. 400 French paratroopers from the Central African Republic deployed around the airport. The evacuation system is working, confirms the Minister for Cooperation Michel Roussin. A first plane, about forty French on board, left Kigali for Bangui just now.
- With a first flight leaving this evening from Kigali airport to the Central African Republic, the evacuation of French nationals living in Rwanda has begun. An operation set up by French paratroopers now numbering 400 since the arrival of new reinforcements at the start of the evening.
- This afternoon, the fighting intensified in the capital where the situation remains very confused. Jean Hélène, "RFI Kigali": "The massacres continue indeed. I went to the hospital, the wounded kept coming. This afternoon, an entire family was massacred in the grounds of a religious mission where they had taken refuge. And in the hospital, it's a morgue overflowing with corpses, piling up. And then emergency rooms where you walk in blood, wounded people covered in moaning wounds. We see children, old people, women, without any distinction".
- Troops sent by Belgium and the United States have also taken up positions in the region to protect their nationals.
- But the rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Front who are advancing towards the capital despite the resistance of government forces are asking France to observe strict neutrality. François Rutayisire, "F.P.R. representative in France": "Anyone who gets in the way of the RPF forces who want to eliminate the presidential guard, the RPF will not hesitate to fight".
- This evening the exodus of foreigners fleeing terror continues, in particular by road with convoys of cars reported towards the South in the direction of Burundi.
- The Quai d'Orsay has made two telephone numbers available to those who have family or relatives in Rwanda.