- Title: ZAIRE: EXHAUSTED RWANDAN HUTU REFUGEES ARRIVE IN EASTERN ZAIRE
- Date: 13th December 1996
- Summary: TINGI-TINGI, ZAIRE (DECEMBER 13, 1996) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) *** QUALITY AS INCOMING *** 1. AERIAL VIEW OF CAMP 0.17 2. LV/SV RWANDAN HUTU REFUGEES IN CAMP WITH MAKESHIFT SHELTERS, COOKING, DOING LAUNDRY (5 SHOTS) 0.46 3. SV CHILDREN AND SICK PEOPLE (3 SHOTS) 1.07 4. PAN TENTS IN FOREST 1.26 5. LV MAN LYING ON
- Embargoed: 28th December 1996 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: TINGI-TINGI, ZAIRE
- City:
- Country: Congo, Democratic Republic of
- Reuters ID: LVAAZ2SHN3FZJR84BV7RW0J6RTJX
- Story Text: INTRO: Aid workers say exhausted Rwandan Hutu refugees who have flocked to a small town in eastern Zaire are desperately short of food.
Tens of thousands of hungry and tired Rwandan Hutus, many of them teenagers and children, have descended on the town of Tingi Tingi in eastern Zaire.
The refugees, who include Burundian Hutus, fled their temporary homes in camps along Zaire's eastern border during the recent Tutsi-led rebellion.
Zairean authorities do not want to see new refugee camps take root in their country so they have refused to allow the refugees into the nearby town of Lubutu.
Now the refugees say they have been abandoned by the international community.
"We're the ones who have been forgotten by the international community," refugee spokesman Serundada Innocent told Reuters on Friday (December 13).
"It's the survival of the fittest. Women and old men arrived exhausted. Those who can't reach Tingi-Tingi die on the way." Many of the refugees had swollen feet. Those who were not too tired to move were scavenging for food and cutting down trees or drawing water from a nearby stream. There was no immediate evidence of disease. Nor was there any sign amongst of them of the feared Rwandan Hutu Interahamwe hardliners blamed for the 1994 genocide of up to a million minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda.
Serundada estimated there were 120,000 refugees in and around the village on the road from the major town of Kisangani east to rebel-held territory bordering Rwanda and Burundi.
Philippe Duamelle of the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) told Reuters that there could be between 40,000 and 100,000 refugees in the area. He said food aid was needed to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe.
UNICEF is spearheading an assessment trip to the region.
Raymond Chretien, United Nations (U.N.) special envoy to the Great Lakes region of Africa, said on Thursday (December 12) that the need for a multinational military force there had greatly diminished.
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