DATE=12/24/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=RWANDA ATTACK (L ONLY)
NUMBER=2-257465
BYLINE=TODD PITMAN
DATELINE=KIGALI
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: In Rwanda, militiamen have killed at least 29
people and injured dozens in a small village in the
northwest of the country. As Todd Pitman reports from
the capital, Kigali, it is the first reported attack
of its kind in more than a year.
TEXT: A senior Rwanda army commander says a band of
Hutu militiamen swept through the small village of
Tamira, around 80 kilometers northwest of the capital,
just before midnight on Thursday.
Aid workers confirmed the killings and said the
injured had been taken to nearby hospitals. The aid
workers say the victims were mostly Tutsis who
originally fled the country after a wave of
persecutions in 1959 but who had returned during the
past few years.
Army sources say the attackers were Interahamwe
militiamen and Hutu soldiers from the former
government who played a leading role in the country's
1994 genocide. Armed with machetes and rifles, the
attackers swept over a chain of volcanoes in northern
Rwanda from bases across the border in eastern Congo.
Hutu extremists massacred an estimated 800-thousand
Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 100 days during the
country's genocide five years ago.
The slaughter was brought to a halt in July 1994 when
Tutsi rebels ousted the former Hutu-led government and
seized power.
Attacks continued in the northwest for years, but the
area has largely been calm since the army pushed Hutu
militiamen deep into forests in Congo at the start of
a Rwandan-backed rebellion that began in Congo in late
1998.
Aid workers say Hutu militia have stepped up their
operations inside Rwanda in recent weeks, twice
engaging the army in gun battles in the northwestern
Ruhengeri region. (Signed)
NEB/TP/JWH/KL
24-Dec-1999 10:37 AM EDT (24-Dec-1999 1537 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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