UN delay as Rwanda massacres continue

As new atrocities were uncovered in Rwanda yesterday, it emerged that a further 5,500 United Nations troops approved by the Security Council in New York on Wednesday night will not arrive in Rwanda for another three weeks - three months after the massacres began.

Journalists following in the wake of the advancing Rwanda Patriotic Front fighters have come across more scenes of horror and death. The most recent victims of the pogrom included 63 civilians and 22 clergymen, including three Roman Catholic bishops killed in two separate incidents. The RPF, the mainly Tutsi movement which controls the eastern half of the country, admitted that four of its soldiers who were supposed to be guarding the bishops, including Archbishop Vincent Nsengiyumva of Kigali, had killed them. Although the RPF has promised to discipline the murderers, the incident will undermine the claim that the RPF is non-ethnic and was not involved in wanton murder. The bishops were all Hutus.

Meanwhile, the UN in Kigali said nine priests and 63 other civilians had been killed at the Nyamirambo church in the capital on Monday. The priests had earlier sent a message to the UN requesting protection.

The weakness of the UN was stressed again yesterday when its headquarters in Kigali was hit by a mortar bomb. No one was hurt. UN convoys were halted.

The charnel house, page 14