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(27 Apr 1997) English/Nat
With 100-thousand terrified Rwandans scattered through central Zaire's jungle after attacks on their camps, international officials pressed rebel leader Laurent Kabila on Sunday to let them find and help them.
Aid workers say land access to refugees, apparently too scared to come out of the dense tropical forest, is the only way to supply them with food and medicine.
So far, only a few hundred refugees have been spotted.
The U-N children's agency, UNICEF, said it especially fears for the well-being of the unaccompanied children, who are the most vulnerable among the refugees.
As aid workers and diplomats press rebel leader Laurent Kabila for access to the missing refugees, the U-N children's agency (UNICEF) said Sunday it feared many may already be dead.
In all, 43-hundred unaccompanied children had been at the camps, and aid workers fear especially for the refugee children who were already ill.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"It depends very much on the state of the children. As I said, around 40 per cent of the kids in the unaccompanied children camps were already wounded, malnourished, sick, malaria, - all sorts of diseases. They of course are going to be the most vulnerable and they will be the first ones, probably, to die."
SUPER CAPTION: Lauchlan Muneo, Chief of Operations, UNICEF, East Zaire
Rebels say they do not know what happened to the refugees.
But UNICEF representative Lauchlan Muneo told journalists Sunday that there had been attacks on the camps.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"There has been an attack on the camps. The camps were full of children and to that extent it is - yes - a war on children"
SUPER CAPTION: Lauchlan Muneo, Chief of Operations, UNICEF, East Zaire
The refugees are the last of the one (m) million Hutus who fled Rwanda in 1994, fearing reprisals for the country's state-orchestrated genocide that killed at least 500-thousand people.
Parents had to leave their children behind in the latest attack, and aid workers say it is imperative that the U-N is given immediate access.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We have heard the stories from parents saying that they had to leave some children behind in the rush to get away from the attack. It's very hard for us to say and what has exactly happened to those children and were they are, what condition they are in. And that's why it's imperative that immediate and unconditional access be granted."
SUPER CAPTION: Lauchlan Muneo, Chief of Operations, UNICEF, East Zaire
Soldiers lined the Zaire River near the camps south of Kisangani late Saturday, apparently looking for refugees.
Some refugees had managed to get small boats and navigate the rapids north to Kisangani.
On Sunday, the U-N-H-C-R sent trucks to pick up 41 refugees spotted south of Kisangani in hopes of reaching them before rebel soldiers or villagers detained them.
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