Reuters , 

25-10-1996

Friday, October 25, 1996, BUKAVU, Zaire (Reuter) - Shelling rocked the eastern Zairean city of Uvira as Tutsi rebels battled Zairean troops Friday and a European envoy warned a new genocide in Central Africa could be near.

Rwandan Hutus fled to Zaire from their homeland in 1994 in fear of reprisals for the Hutu genocide of up to an estimated 1 million Tutsis and Hutu moderates.

Western aid workers in Geneva said the Banyamulenge rebels had seized Uvira airport and cut off all satellite and radio communications and many people were fleeing the lakeside city.

Residents of the Burundian capital Bujumbura, 18 miles to the east, said they heard blasts from Uvira overnight and Friday from fighting between Zairean troops and Tutsi rebels.

A local U.N. radio operator in Uvira was quoted as saying Thursday night he had to stop transmitting as rebels were about to take the area where he was. He has not been heard of since.

Rebels said they would seize all Uvira Friday night. A rebel leader, who said he was speaking from Uvira by satellite telephone, told the BBC that they had taken Uvira and were cleaning up pockets of resistance.

A top Burundian army officer, Security Coordinator Lt. Col. Jean Bosco Daradangwe, told Reuters battles between the army and rebels around Uvira raged all day.

Another Burundian army officer said Uvira had not yet fallen but rebels had seized a frontier post at Vugizo and the Belgian-built Kiliba sugar plantation 10 miles from Uvira.

He said the rebels controlled most territory between Uvira and the capital of South Kivu province, Bukavu, 60 miles to the north. The Zairean army in Bukavu said the nearest rebels were 20 miles from the lakeside city.

A CARE aid agency vehicle was stolen in Bukavu, apparently by Zairean soldiers trying to flee with their families.

Aid officials fear the Tutsi rebellion in eastern Zaire which burst into heavy fighting a week ago could spread further and Tutsi-dominated armies in Burundi and Rwanda could join the conflict. Both countries deny they are involved.

Zairean President Mobutu Sese Seko is in Switzerland, receiving chemotherapy after an operation for cancer in August, fueling fears the revolt might herald the break up of Zaire.

The Banyamulenge, who migrated to what is now Zaire some 200 years ago, say they are fighting for control of all Kivu, the return of their property and Zairean citizenship, which had been denied to them in 1981.

In Brussels, European Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Emma Bonino appealed to the warring parties to stop fighting and avoid further genocide in Central Africa's Great Lakes region.

"A new genocide is possibly in the offing," said the aid chief, adding efforts to feed the 1.1 million refugees in eastern Zaire faced severe problems as fighting had blocked aid.

"I am deeply saddened that once again you are on the roads fleeing for your lives," said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata in a message broadcast by radio to the nearly 300,000 refugees to flee violence in the last week.

"This terrible situation may not stop immediately, and I would like you to know that we will do everything possible, in cooperation with the authorities to help you where we can," she added.

@AGNews 2002