THE RWANDAN government has asked United Nations agencies and aid organisations to launch a major operation across its border to try to help the 1.2 million Hutu refugees believed to be starving in Zaire.
The move, announced yesterday afternoon, has raised hopes that a humanitarian catastrophe may be averted, and represents a major change in the position of Rwanda. Rwandan troops have been preventing non-governmental agencies from crossing into Zaire all weeks.
The move came as a senior medical aid worker in Paris estimated that more than 13,600 refugees in eastern Zaire had died of deprivation over the past three weeks, not including victims of the fighting.
Mr Bernard Pecoul, director-general of Medecins sans Frontieres ( MSF), said the average assessment in such situations was that 10 out of every 10,000 refugees died every day. "We can therefore estimate that more than 13,600 people have died since the crisis started 21 days ago," he said.
The Rwandan government wants the refugees to return to Rwanda, and fears they will not do so if aid Is given to them in Zaire. If they do not return, Rwanda believes the armed Hutu militias will use new refugee camps as they have done the old ones, as a base from which to mount attacks to destabilise the government.
The Kigali government's agreement to allow a major relief operation to be launched from the country follows intense international pressure. The eight non-governmental agencies involved include the Irish organisations, Trocaire and Concern.
There are still major obstacles in the way of those trying to prevent a feared humanitarian%n catastrophe. Zaire has yet to approve this plan to help the refugees, and the agencies must then find a safe way to bring aid across the front line between Tutsi-dominated rebels and Hutu militias.
The Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Ms Joan Burton, who will lead an EU delegation to Zaire and Rwanda this weekend, said yesterday she would urge Zaire to authorise a mission to help the refugees.
"We now have a very small space in which to try to avoid a major human disaster through hunger and disease," Ms Burton said.
The Rwandan government invited the agencies to a meeting yesterday afternoon to ask them to put together a strategy to bring food and medical supplies to the refugees. The agencies will meet in Kigali this morning to try to finalise their plan.
Fighting was reported yesterday along the front line.
Zairean troops who fled the fighting are understood to have scattered a considerable distance in several directions. Some, in a fleet of hijacked UN and aid agency vehicles, have reached the town of Kisangani 300 miles to the north-west of Goma. There are unconfirmed reports of looting by soldiers in the town.
The town is also said to be experiencing rising food prices and health problems. Groups of students are reported to have burned premises said to be "Rwandan-owned" probably owned by descendants of people who left Rwanda some generations ago.
In Kinshasa, the Zairean capital, thousands of students took over the parliament building on Thursday for a period in a protest against the Prime Minister, Mr Kenga Wa Dondo. The prime minister, who, has a Tutsi grandparent, has become a target of abuse by Zaireans - unhappy at the loss of territory in eastern Zaire to Tutsi-dominated rebels.
There were also unconfirmed reports that Hutu militias had kidnapped a number of children west of Goma in an attempt to force the rebels to halt their advance.