RWANDA: ARMY INVADES ZAIRE AS FIGHTING ESCALATES

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• published: 21 Jul 2015
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English/Nat The Rwandan army has invaded neighbouring Zaire in a major escalation of the conflict around the refugee camps in the eastern part of the country. Rwandan troops are now openly fighting alongside Tutsi rebels against Zairean soldiers. Reports say Rwandans have captured the Zairean town of Goma. Meanwhile thousands of refugees are on the move, prompting a massive humanitarian disaster which the United Nations is unable to cope with. Rwandans from the border town of Gisenyi are gathering up their belongings and leaving in their thousands. The roads leading out of Gisenyi have been filled with Rwandans on the move - some carrying clothes and mattresses on their backs. The exodus follows the shelling from across the border in Zaire of Gisenyi's main market on Friday, which wounded several people. The artillery attack on Gisenyi has caused more than five-thousand Rwandans to flee this border town. This woman, wounded in the attack, had to be carried out of the town by stretcher. Zairean and Rwandan troops traded fire across the border at Gisenyi, at the north end of Lake Kivu just across the border from the embattled Zairean city of Goma. A representative for the charity CARE says residents are leaving Gisenyi because they no longer feel safe. SOUNDBITE: "It looks like the war has come to Gisenyi but that may be by accident rather than by design, and there's no telling at this stage whether this situation is going to continue, but the people in town clearly don't feel safe here anymore and they've just picked up all their belongings really really quickly and are streaming out on the road. There is a transit centre a way out of town where they would be able to find some food and shelter for a night at least. It's possible they may all be back to tomorrow. It really much depends what happens with the security situation in the next little while." SUPER CAPTION; Alison Campbell, CARE representative The once-bustling market has been left deserted, while Hutu militia, armed and naked, parade on the Rwandan-Zaire border. Tensions have been on the rise at this border as fighting between Zairean government troops and Tutsi rebels has been going on to take control of Goma's airport. Goma came under heavy shelling, Friday, and latest reports say it has been taken by Rwandan soldiers. Massing of weapons show preparations for all-out war. Panicked residents are now streaming out of Goma. The latest bout of fighting pits Tutsis against the Zairean government and Rwandan Hutu refugees, some of whom were responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda of up to one million Tutsis and other victims. At the Bugendana Transit Refugee camp in Rwanda, about 75 kilometres (50 miles) southwest of Gisenyi, there are fears that aid workers won't be able to cope with the influx of refugees. U-N efforts to try to feed more than a million refugees in eastern Zaire and tens of thousands of displaced Zaireans hangs by a thread as foreign aid workers prepared to evacuate from Goma. A pullout by aid agencies is likely to lead to a massive humanitarian disaster greater than 1994, when some 50-thousand newly-arrived Rwandan refugees died of epidemics in stinking, overcrowded camps in eastern Zaire. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/d08707039052cbb3a76ab54f3427aac3 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork