Citation
KIGALI, April 12 (Reuter) - Rebel officers said their forces had
started encircling the Rwandan capital of Kigali ready to take it over
as soon as foreign troops conducting evacuation operations had left.
At Mulindi, the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) bush headquarters 70 km
north of Kigali, officers told Reuters two battalions were on the
outskirts of the city and were waiting to overrun the international
airport once French and Belgian troops departed later in the day.
They are expected to take the airport. They will only move once
foreign soldiers have left,
an RPF commander said.
Rwanda's entire cabinet, appointed last week after the death of
President Juvenal Habyarimana, earlier on Tuesday fled the embattled
capital, witnesses said.
The administration, led by former parliamentary speaker Venat Theodore
Sindikubwabo, was swiftly rejected by the rebels as illegitimate
soon
after it took over last week.
The ambassadors of Belgium, France and Germany were also said to be
leaving Kigali on Tuesday.
The entire staff of the Russian embassy in the capital, as well as
representatives of the Russian airline Aeroflot and their families,
were evacuated to neighbouring Burundi.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
