Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 25, 1993 TAG: 9303250099
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: KIGALI, RWANDA LENGTH: Medium
FARMERS FLEE; HUNGER LOOMS
A sudden and huge exodus of farmers from the country's most fertile region is threatening mass starvation in this tiny Central African nation.An estimated 1 million people fled the northern hills in two weeks last month, bringing stories of neighbors who had been burned alive or disemboweled - and of a new rebel offensive in the 2 1/2-year-old civil war.
That's nearly one-seventh of the population in one of the world's most overcrowded, densely populated countries, best known for being home to half of the world's 600 mountain gorillas.
On Wednesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross urged government forces and rebels to act to "prevent a major disaster," warning of the extreme difficulty of bringing in aid.
"The displaced must be allowed to return to their homes," the Red Cross said. "The lives of 1 million people are hanging in the balance."
Rwanda's 7.5 million people exist in a land smaller than Maryland. But now, about 1 million live in squalid displacement camps near the capital, Kigali, eating emergency relief supplies and stripping forests for shelter and firewood.
"We have to replace what they cannot grow," said Walter Stocker of the Red Cross. "It is unmanageable and will remain unmanageable until the people can go back."
The cities are under curfew, military roadblocks are everywhere and people have scattered to find shelter with relatives.
Reduced supplies from the north already have caused price increases, officials say.
The recent outbreak in violence started after supporters of President Juvenal Habyarimana protested that rebels were promised too much in a power-sharing agreement.
Political developments ignited smoldering historical hatreds between the majority Hutu tribe and minority Tutsis. The result was machete fights in the streets of the capital and reported massacres in the countryside. The Red Cross estimates that 2,000 civilians have been killed.
An international airlift was mounted a month ago by the Red Cross and the U.N. World Food Program. But the Red Cross said agencies are unlikely to continue donating the needed 13,000 tons of food every month over the long term.
Meanwhile, farms plots lie abandoned in the north, an agricultural area that produces more than it needs and sells the rest.
International organizations fear that if the displaced don't return in the coming weeks, they'll miss the rest of the planting season and food shortages will follow.
After tense talks in Tanzania, the rebels this week began pulling back to last summer's cease-fire line, the government said. But people say they won't go home until the United Nations sends peacekeepers voted on this month. No date has been set for their arrival.