USA/ZAIRE: U.N. HIGH COMMISSIONER SADAKO OGATA COMMENTS ON REFUGEE DEATHS IN ZAIRE.

Record ID: 275028

  • Title: USA/ZAIRE: U.N. HIGH COMMISSIONER SADAKO OGATA COMMENTS ON REFUGEE DEATHS IN ZAIRE.
  • Date: 4th May 1997
  • Summary: KISANGANI, ZAIRE (MAY 4, 1997) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) 1. LV: WIDE SHOT OF TRAIN PACKED WITH REFUGEES 0.06 2. MV: CLOSE-UP OF TRAIN PACKED WITH REFUGEES 0.16 WASHINGTON D.C., UNITED STATES (MAY 5) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) 3. GV/ZOOM/MCU: SADAKO OGATA, U.N. HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES SAYING ON THE TRAIN THAT WENT OUT YESTERDAY WE W
  • Embargoed: 19th May 1997 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: WASHINGTON, USA/ KISANGANI, ZAIRE
  • City:
  • Country: USA
  • Reuters ID: LVA33BCBFV875EP62ZK26U6ONDDU
  • Story Text: INTRO: The United Nations High Comissioner for Refugees has said on Monday (May 5) that it was a lack of coordination which caused the deaths of almost 100 Rwandan refugees who suffocated or were crushed to death on Sunday in a train carrying them from a refugee camp in Zaire to be airlifted back to their country.

    -------------------------------------------------------------------- Responding to questions of blame for the refugees' deaths, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, Sadako Ogata, went short of taking responsibility, but acknowledged that U.N. field workers were not on the train and did not properly coordinate the transportation with local authorities.

    Ogata said, that until the refugees' transportation can be properly coordinated, the railway missions would behalted. She said that the UNHCR was examining other modalities of transportaion.

    The train which left Biaro station on Sunday promised the end of a pitiful three-year odyssey for the thousands of Rwandans who clambered aboard the rickety open carriages on the way to a United Nations airlift back home.

    Just over two hours later, as it pulled into Lubunga Station in Kisangani, it emerged that they had undergone a horrific ordeal in which 91 of them were killed -- suffocated or crushed to death.

    Survivors said thousands of refugees had swarmed onto the train as it pulled out of a station near Biaro. In the crush that followed, the weak, children and dozens of desperately ill adults were forced to the bottom of the carriages.

    Those watching the arrival were unaware that under thousands of upright refugees lay the bodies of dozens who died during the journey.

    Hundreds were reported injured, more than 50 of them in serious condition.

    Ogata said that although the situation for refugees in Rwanda is not promising, it is the "least worst situation".

    The refugees, remnants of over one million Hutus who fled Rwanda in 1994 to escape reprisal for the genocide of over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus, fled west deeper into Zaire when the rebels began their offensive last year.


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