Rwandan and army sign cease-fire deal in Rwanda
Rwandan and army sign cease-fire deal in Rwanda
BRUSSELS (Agencies): Rwandan rebels and the army yesterday signed a cease-fire agreement which appears to be holding, the commander of Belgian UN troops in the African country said.
"The two sides agreed this morning on a cease-fire and apart from sporadic shots it seems to be holding," Colonel Luc Marchal said in the Rwandan capital Kigali in a live interview with Belgian television.
The report came as the multi-nation emergency operation to pull thousands of foreigners out of war-torn Rwanda stepped up a gear yesterday, with France and Belgium consolidating an airlift.
Aid workers reported the capital relatively quiet overnight.
The French airborne evacuation of 600 French nationals and other foreigners, which got under way late Saturday, continued yesterday morning with shuttle flights to the Burundian capital Bujumbura, a foreign ministry spokeswoman in Paris said.
Catherine Colonna said a first flight with 64 French nationals arrived in Burundi yesterday, and other flights would reach the city later in the day.
More than 500 Burundian refugees, fleeing ethnic violence that began after the president was killed, arrived in Tanzania on Sunday, radio Tanzania reported.
The radio, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in Nairobi, quoted a student among the 570 refugees as saying the capital Bujumbura was tense with attacks on residential areas occupied by members of the majority Hutu tribe.
The attacks were the first signs of violence in Burundi since President Cyprien Ntaryamira died in a plane crash last week with his Rwandan counterpart Juvenal Habyarimana.
But the tiny central African state has remained largely unstable since renegade soldiers from the minority Tutsi tribe murdered Melchior Ndadaye, the country's first elected leader in October last year. Ndadaye was a Hutu.
The student said he had been forced to run away from the University of Burundi to avoid being killed by an army of Hutu students, the radio added.
Meanwhile Belgian planes flown to neighboring African countries and due to participate in the evacuation of between 1,500 and 2,000 Belgians and other expatriates gained authorization from Rwandan authorities to land at Kigali airport, a spokesman for the Brussels defense ministry said.
Spokesman Freddy van de Weghe told AFP: "The new government has decided to allow Belgian planes to land."
He said a Brussels-led airlift could get under way within hours, provided Belgian soldiers already on the ground confirmed it was now safe for the planes to land.
Foreign Minister Willy Claes added that, if necessary, some Belgian nationals could be evacuated on French or U.S. planes. 12 hours
Early yesterday 4,000 ethnic Tutsi rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, which earlier warned against foreign armed intervention on the ground and indicated any airlift should be completed in 12 hours, were reported to advance on Kigali.
But the commander of Belgian UN troops said yesterday afternoon the rebels and the Rwandan army had signed a cease-fire agreement.
Marchal said that "the intensity of the fighting in recent days has given the impression that it (the combat) is all over."
The rebel troops were to back up a 600-men rebel force already in city, where at least 1,000 people have been killed and thousands wounded in three days of bloodletting between the Tutsis and the majority Hutus.
On Saturday three plane loads of 600 Belgian paratroopers left Brussels to assist in the evacuation, while eight aircraft also left the city laden with heavy equipment which could be used to secure the route to the airport, around 10 kilometers (six miles) outside Kigali.
But the troops were prevented from landing at Kigali airport by Rwandan government forces blocking the runway there to all but French aircraft.
In Oman, French Defense Minister Francois Leotard stressed that his troops had not been deployed in Rwanda "to wage war," but to carry out a "pinpoint" evacuation operation.
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