ENOUGH PROJECT AND ITS LEADERS JOHNNIE AND SASHA ARE ON A MISSION TO KILL OFF HUTU POPULATIONS FROM EASTERN DRC.

By BIGIRIMANA LEODOMILLE

     UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX

RWANDANS IN EUROPE ORGANIZED PROTESTS TO SUPPORT RWANDAN REFUGEES IN DRC

The Enough Project is an American think tank set up to promote imperialism and the looting of Africa, while pretending to be an advocacy group for peace and democracy. To better understand this organization, one must begin by understanding the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC. As the world’s largest and most expensive UN mission, Monusco’s real role has been to protect western illegal mining companies in the region, by making sure that there are safe corridors to smuggle illegal coltan, gold and diamonds from DRC through Rwanda, where they are then processed before being shipped to various Western countries.

John Prendergast of the Enough Project
and the Holywood Actor Clooney

Over the last decade the Enough Project has done nothing else but spreading pro-Kagame propaganda in western media, by sanitizing and sanctifying Mr. Kagame and his regime, going as far as justifying his crimes against humanity committed both in Rwanda and DRC, since the early 1990s to this day. As a matter of fact, the leadership of the Enough Project has perfected this game of deception and public relations for Mr. Kagame and his brutal monarchy in Rwanda to such extent that most objective observers do not see it as a humanitarian organization, but a public relations wing of the Kigali government designed to misinform the world and preserve the fast crumbling image of Mr. Kagame and Museveni.

For the Congolese and Rwandans who have lost their loved ones because of Kagame-Museveni and their western backers, such as Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, we see both Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast for who they really are. They have tried hard to distort the most credible truth from the research carried out by UNHCR in 1995 to the UN Mapping Report on DRC of 2010. The Enough Project and its team have done nothing humanitarian but to hide the truth from the American taxpayers and wash off the innocent blood of Hutu and Congolese children massacred by the Rwandan Patriotic Front with full blessings from the Clinton administration.

Shamelessly Sasha and Johnie have worked tirelessly to sustain Kagame’s government even after committing a genocide in DRC since they are not white people being butchered in DRC, they don’t care as long as there are plenty of minerals looted to sustain their multibillion empire at the cost of an African blood of the innocent people of the Great Lakes of Africa. Both Rwandan and Congolese people feel the pain and sorrow of our people as the World remains indifferent to our suffering.

THE 1996 RPF-US AVALANCHE OF BOMBS ON HUTU REFUGEE CAMPS IN GOMA

In the meantime, the Enough Project’s leadership has taken over the media’s role in promoting Kigali’s agenda of hatred and persecution of the Hutu refugees who are still living in deplorable conditions in DRC; to compensate for the fact that Kigali’s newspapers are no longer credible in the region. Here we have to remind you that contrary to fictional figures given by the enough project that there are only 1500 Rwandan refugees in Eastern DRC. The recent census carried out by both DRC government and the UNHCR found that there are close to 300,000 Rwandan refugees still living in Eastern DRC of which more than 70% of these refugees are children who are below 20 years of age. This means more than 210000 are children. 

Sasha Lezhnev

These re the people the Enough Project, UN, USA, UK, and UNHCR are eagerly calling for their elimination in order to finish the work they had failed to accomplish in 1996 when they sent in soldiers into Hutu refugee camps to kill us indiscriminately, which continues to be an attempt to finish what they started in 1996, when millions of the Hutu refugees scattered around Eastern DRC were treated to an avalanche of bombs, machine gunfire, mortar and tank shells, and other heavy artillery, all at the American tax payer’s expanse with the sole aim to eliminate Hutu ethnic from this earth and solidify Kagame’s rule in Kigali.

At the time the RPF and its supporters’ objective was to eliminate any living able-bodied Hutu. They made sure that they are buried in unmarked mass graves in the DRC, so that their henchman in Kigali can continue his rule unhindered. Today, the Enough Project continues this agenda with a new approach. This new approach involves using regional media houses in Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, and Angola to spread propaganda, claiming that Hutus are murderers by nature, and that if they were left alone, they would come back to Rwanda and commit genocide again. Despite the fact that the 2010 UN Mapping report on DRC demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that millions of Hutus were indiscriminately massacred, by the US supported Tutsi-led government in Kigali, in what the UN Human rights commission described as a likely genocide committed against the Hutus in both Rwanda and DR Congo.

ENOUGH PROJECT PIECE OF PROPAGANDA IN THE EAST AFRICAN MEDIA

On December 27, 2014 the Enough Project team led by Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast published another propaganda piece designed to scare the public and portraying the Rwandan freedom fighters of the FDLR as murderers and rapists who deserve to be slaughtered. Soon after that, the Enough Project and CBS aired a five minute news piece titled “Militia accused of Rwanda genocide facing onslaught,” produced by the Enough Project’s director, intelligence professional John Prendergast. The Enough Project went on to publish another article in the Kenyan newspaper, the Daily Nation called "FDLR surrender deadline is here but Dar, Pretoria don’t want to know." The article laments the fact South African President Jacob Zuma and his Tanzanian counterpart Jakaya Kikwete are reluctant to engage in another large scale massacre of Hutu refugees in the DRC.

These two presidents have so far refuse to rally behind the Enough Project's call to massacre innocent Hutu refugees living in DRC, because they understand the plight of over 300,000 Hutu refugees, including women and children, who simply don’t want to go back to Rwanda because they fear for their lives once they return. In this article, Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast sounded frustrated by the fact that as the deadline was fast approaching for the UN to initiate an unprovoked war against the FDLR freedom fighters, but both Kikwete and Zuma had refused and still refuse to buy western lies that are aimed to push Africans to kill other innocent Africans just because these innocent Africans have refused to bow to the western puppet government in Kigali. 

I wonder how Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast would feel if the United States of America were  led by a minority clique that controls everything, including the army and all major business with the full backing of the Russia Federation! How come they don’t support that the American style of democracy, especially the popular electoral process to be practiced in Rwanda? How would these two gentlemen feel, if Kagame was their president, and they heard him bragging about how he regrets having missed the opportunity to massacre some of their fellow citizens, like he always does. Do you remember Mr. Kagame complaining that the International community interfered with his plans to kill as many Hutus as he could before they crossed into Zaire (now DRC) right after the 1994 RPF induced catastrophe? Have you watched the BBC Hard Talk when President Kagame admittedly said that he does not regret for having shot down the Rwandan plane that was carrying President Habyarimana? Is not this an act of terrorism? How come the Enough Project has not come clean on this and call for the prosecution of those involved in the shooting of the Habyarimana’s plane which killed two Hutu presidents: Cyprian Ntaryamira of Burundi and Habyarimana Juvenal of Rwanda? Rwanda youth are tired of 25 years of humiliation and history distortion but western propaganda machinery.

ENOUGH PROJECT PAIN FOR THE M23 RECENT DEFEAT

In this photo Congolese soldiers parading bodies of M23 soldiers
This was a humiliating defeat to both Rwanda and EP

In the article published in the Kenyan owned newspaper called the East African, Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast’s article cries foul over the demise of the M23, the Tutsi led and Kagame sponsored rebel group that spread carnage all over Eastern DRC before getting completely obliterated by South African and Tanzanian troops in December 2013. The remnants of this brutal group have been given kingly accommodation in both Kigali and Kampala far from worries of any consequences for their actions, therefore perpetuating the pattern by which innocent Congolese people who lost their lives to Kagame’s war and those of his proxy forces such as the M23 are never acknowledged and they are never given proper justice. For us who are versed in the International Politics affairs, where have you seen a rebellion movement comprised with foreign troops being defeated and retreats in a neighboring country where they are accommodated as refugees and later are resettled by the UNHCR in a third country? This is what is happening now to the former M23 fighters who are harbored by both Kigali and Kampala. After the defeat, former members of M23 sheltered in Rwanda and Uganda are being now given resettlement to the United States of America to settle there as refugees. Majority of these former Tutsi rebels are resettled by an American organization operating in Nairobi called Refuge Point formerly known as Mapendo International. 

(L-R) Mapendo International founder Sasha Chanoff,
 journalist Anderson Cooper, and Rose Mapendo

To be accepted that you are a former M23 member or a relative of M23 you must have a pass-code that you are asked to produce during the interview process at the Refuge Point Headquarters in Hurlingham, Nairobi. After that you are referred to UNHCR Nairobi office for immediate resettlement. Majority of M23 members resettled in US are found in Abilene and Amarillo in Texas.

 If the Enough Project was seriously interested in Ending Genocide and Crimes against Humanity as its website claims in very big letters, they should start by holding Rwanda and Uganda accountable for harboring criminals responsible for massacres of innocent Congolese and bring them to justice in DRC, so that Congolese families can get adequate justice. If Enough Project was not biased against the Hutu people in the region and truly believed in its stated goal of Ending Genocide, they should have taken time to read the UN Mapping report on DRC 2010 and they should be demanding justice for the Hutu refugees massacred in DRC from 1996 to 2013. Do Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast really understand what it is like to grow up an orphan? I am sure they don’t, otherwise they should have left Rwandan refugees living in DR Congo alone, and because they want to see their children grow up happy and hopeful just like Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast’s children. However, it is now clear that Kagame, US, UK, and Enough Project do not want to see this happen, henceforth the obsession with trying to wage war against the FDLR.

In their article both Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast continue citing unproven allegations that the FDLR has committed numerous massacres in eastern Congo. As if they don’t know how RPF bombed, and shelled the Hutu refugees who had sought refuge at UN peacekeeping mission camp in Kibeho in 1995 where more than 100000 Hutu displaced refugees were massacred in broad daylight. Both Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast forget that more than 5 hundred thousand Hutu refugees were massacred in Walikale, Tingitingi, Amisi, Lubuthu, Kisangani, Ubundu, Ikella, Masisi, Kibabi, Mbandaka, and Tongo between 1996 and 2000 and yet Enough Project has never bothered to write even one article condemning the RPF. All they do is publish numerous articles showering President Kagame with praises as an exemplary leader, despite the fact that in recent months, more than 40000 Rwandans disappeared and 40 bodies were found in Lake Rweru in the year 2014 alone. This is blatant hypocrisy! For Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast to think that going after the FDLR for unproven allegations, and in most cases crimes committed by Kagame’s proxy forces in order to tarnish the FDLR’s image in the eyes of the world, while ignoring how Kagame’s RPF has been killing Rwandan and Congolese Hutus, is incredibly short sighted and downright criminal, because it is clear to any peace loving individual in the World, that the solution for our Country’s problems require an unbiased approach from foreign actors such as these two.

ENOUGH PROJECT JOB RECRUITMENT AGENDA

It has also come to our attention that due to this double standards, the Enough Project has never hired any Hutu professional to work in any of their offices because they fear that this might interfere with their nefarious agenda designed to subdue the Hutu populations on behalf of the Tutsi led military regime of Paul Kagame. As a matter of fact there are more than three Tutsis working for the Enough Project, while all Hutus who apply to work for this organization are invariably turned down, even when they are fully qualified. The Enough Project always finds some excuse to reject Hutu applicants regardless of their country of origin, whether they are from DRC, Rwanda, Uganda, or Burundi matters not.

Another complaint from the Enough Project about the FDLR is the fact that this Liberation movement offered to disarm in May 2014, and that it seemingly has not followed through with its commitment. Instead of wasting time worrying about what the FDLR is doing, the Enough Project should spend time telling to the world the reason why since the M23 was defeated, Eastern Congo has been somewhat calm. We know that even in small instances in which there has been some unrest in the area, it was for reasons that had nothing whatsoever to do with the FDLR. Besides M23’s defeat exposed to the world the fact that this was a foreign proxy  force, by the simple fact that they all fled to Rwanda and Uganda and have been living there peacefully as most of them belonged to the Armies of these two countries(Rwanda and Uganda). This defeat also helped the world come to grips with the fact that the only reason why Rwanda and Uganda keep sending their forces into the DRC has nothing to do with security, instead it is has more to do with the looting of Congo natural resources which these two countries are now addicted to, and which they desperately need to sustain their greedy despotic leadership’s military machines and extravagant lifestyles. The Enough Project should also explain to the readers, especially those from African Great lakes region why General Bosco Ntaganda fled to US Embassy in Kigali and how he managed to get there from Jomba DRC!

Any serious political observer in the Great Lakes region knows full well that the FDLR has the support of more than 80% of the Rwandese population, which makes it more legitimate and more trusty worthy than the Enough Project wants to portray it. It is for this reason that the President of Tanzania and his colleagues from the SADC support a political settlement between the FDLR and the Government of Rwanda, it is shameful and downright arrogant to see John Prendergast and his side kick Sasha beating war drums in matters they know nothing about. If these two really want to help, they should devote more time and energy in convincing their boss, Paul Kagame, to accept negotiations with the FDLR and try and beat them politically in the next elections, if, as the Enough Project duo would like us to believe, the man is a military and political genius.

This article also goes on to accuse the FDLR of using the last  six months to regroup, by trading gold and charcoal for weapons, and mobilizing political support, baseless charge that can only be described as an attempt to turn the FDLR into an international threat which it has never been and has never claimed to be. In the meantime the article fails to mention how Rwanda has now become the leading coltan exporter despite the fact that everybody knows that its geology does not contain such minerals.

In this pure propaganda piece, the Enough Project team quotes an imaginary source by the name of Georges as a Congolese community leader who allegedly says that “Their (FDLR) demobilization offer is only going to help them buy time as usual.” We all know that the Enough Project has written numerous propaganda materials and produced documentaries which they aired through various American media outlets, portraying the FDLR as being made of evil people who must be exterminated while showing the RPF and Kagame’s as the role models to be emulated all over the African continent. This is done solely to manipulate western public opinion in favor of Kagame. This also paves the way for a complete indifference to any crimes committed against the Hutu people, as these two gentlemen keep confusing the word FDLR with the word Hutu, and the word Hutu with killer.

Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast also talk about the Congolese civil society organizations that have written letters to the UN calling for military operations against the FDLR which as it turns out are phantom organizations that were founded and funded by the Enough Project to give the impression that the Congolese people have a problem with the FDLR, because John and Sasha the warmongers, know very well that even the UN is aware of the fact that the FDLR has a strong relationship with the local population and they always support it and depend on it for their security when the Kinshasa government fails them. It is for this reason that the Enough Project has created its own phony civil society organizations to push its malicious lies against the FDLR. 

This is why at this stage it should be up to the Rwandans and Congolese who understand their own issues to come up with solutions, rather than allowing themselves to be manipulated by a bunch of mercenaries who sit in New York and Washington DC and think of many ways to prolong our people’s misery, which they initiated in order to benefit from the ensuing chaos. It is time for Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast to understand that Congolese people are not stupid. Anyone who wants to know what the people of Eastern DRC think about FDLR should go to Masisi and ask the villagers who hide Hutu families when the US and the UK send bombs through their murderous puppet governments, in Uganda and Kigali with the goal to exterminate Hutu refugees. For most Rwandans, our mothers, brothers, sisters, aunts, and grandmothers have survived for the last 20 years in the DRC because the people of Masisi identify with us not only by language but also by blood.

WHAT A JOY FOR HUTU CHILDREN TO SEE THE DR CONGO NOT KILLING THEM THIS JANUARY AND WHAT A PAIN FOR ENOUGH PROJECT 

January 2, 2015 has come and gone as John and Sasha wait for the extermination of our people, and reading through their articles you can tell it couldn’t come soon enough. As our people wait anxiously to find out if the UN is ready to engage in another large scale war crimes operation against the Hutu refugees, it is worth reminding the greedy people at the Enough Project that our people have survived the Bill Clinton onslaught for which the details are recorded the UN Mapping report. The Armies of Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda with air support from the US and Israel tried to wipe Hutu refugees off the face of the earth and they couldn’t. 

No wonder John Pendergrass wants a repeat of this macabre episode, since at the time he was a member of Bill Clinton’s National security team. In 1997 a British-American tobacco company won a tender to plant tobacco in Northern Rwanda, after RPF nearly killed off the entire Hutu population in the region. However, by the Grace of God, if you visit Ruhengeri and Gisenyi today you’d be surprised to see with your own eyes how people have managed to rebuild their lives. Over the last 24 years Western countries, notably US and UK, have done everything possible to uproot the Hutu population from the Great Lakes region and establish a Tutsi empire that serves their own interests regardless of how many lives are lost in this devilish endeavor. However, when you kill one Hutu, 10 more are born and not long after they learn the truth about who killed their relatives, and who is responsible for turning them into orphans. So far, the 2^nd of January, 2015 was a day like any other, and we’re still standing.

As always Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast are blaming Tanzania and South Africa for refusing to play blind pawns in a dangerous game of imperialistic expansion, knowing full well that thousands and thousands of lives are at stake. They are also complaining about the fact that Tanzania and South Africa don’t see the need to attack FDLR and kill innocent women and children in the process, as the two countries have decided to put the value of human life before money and political interests. It is clear that Tanzania understands the situation in Rwanda better than Sasha Lezhnev, John Prendergast and the other Western cohort behind them, which is why the Tanzanian government website lists the FDLR as a freedom fighting organization. 

Senior South African envoys have lobbied to delay military operations against the FDLR, because they understand that there is no need to continue shedding innocent blood in Eastern DRC because South Africans are starting to understand our predicament. The South Africans lived as refugees for over 200 years. They remember how Mandela was labeled a terrorist on the CIA website until as recently as 2009. They remember the pain they endured when the US Government openly supported the Apartheid regime as it oppressed black communities in South Africa. They understand that the Hutu people are now victims of the same kind of oppressor with the same goals and ideology as those belonging to the clique that established the South African Apartheid system. As a matter of fact, President Zuma was called a terrorist the same way the Enough Project’s duo from hell, John and Sasha talk about the FDLR.

The Enough Project has suggested three changes that can get the process back on track including 1) Tanzania and South Africa to commit to conducting operations against the FDLR if the benchmarks are not met by the deadline. ….to stop helping the alleged genocidaires, that has used rape systematically as a weapon of war…2) the UN should rotate troops out of the Congo operation that are not making useful contributions and rotate in more capable militaries, in co-ordination with the Congolese government…... Angola, for example, has one of the region’s most capable armies and could be encouraged to take on a larger regional peacekeeping role. 3) The US should deploy Special Forces advisors to the Intervention Brigade in a pared-down version of the successful counter-Lord’s Resistance Army mission.

Anyone with a deeper understanding of the conflict in the Great Lakes would find Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast proposals utterly laughable if it were not for the destructive and criminal nature of their concept:

1. First the governments of Tanzania and South Africa have full grasp of the root causes of all the problems in the region, and they have determined that they can only be addressed through political dialogue. These are political issues and there is no way American bombs, drones, and CIA assassins can bring lasting peace, as they haven’t been able to bring it anywhere else where the United State of America has gotten involved, in places such as Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and now the Enough Project would like to add the DRC to that ever growing number suggesting the US sends marines into the jungles of Congo. South Africa and Tanzania are not American colonies and they happen to be part of the few African countries that cherish their independence and sovereignty above all.  Both countries were very instrumental in crafting the current political arrangement in Burundi, and Burundi and Rwanda are not that different, in terms of demographics and the sociopolitical environment is the same. Both South Africa and Tanzania also understands the basic truth, that no one can resolve the problems of Eastern DRC without solving the Rwanda puzzle. Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast keep calling all Hutu elite genocidaires, even though the ICTR in Arusha, an American instigated kangaroo court which has only tried Hutus since its inception, still failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Hutu government of the early 1990 planned a genocide. The constant reference to the FDLR as a genocidal force is not based on anything else but blind hatred and the need to cover up the wrongs done to our people by the Clinton administration in which John Prendergast was part of. As the facts about what happened in the 90’s keep coming out, the genocide ploy is starting to wear off, which make the Enough Project the last hardcore PR instrument for Kagame. The day the attack on President Habyarimana is labeled a terrorist attack by a competent court, we would hope that someone from the Clinton administration is frog marched to The Hague to account for this crime. My guess is Johnnie and Sasha may end up being the perfect fall guys when that time comes, since they seem ready to defend the indefensible. With everything we know right now, defending Kagame should in itself be considered a crime against humanity and common decency and Johnnie and Sasha have neither!
2.  In October this year 10 UN peacekeepers in DRC were caught with a load of Congolese military uniform that they were taking to Rwanda. Various human rights reports have described many incidents in which Monusco soldiers raped women and got them pregnant, and they never even bothered taking responsibility for the children let alone facing justice for these horrendous crimes. In 2012 Indian peacekeepers in DRC were caught with thousands of kilos of Gold, illegally mined in DRC, and smuggled out through Rwanda. Friends of Congo, a Congolese rights organization based in US has demonstrated that there are more than 200 western mining companies, mostly from US involved in illegal mining in DRC where child labor is business as usual. The UN has no moral authority to resolve the DRC issue, because its involvement in DRC has only helped facilitate illegal mining activities and the perpetuation of the seemingly UN sanctioned persecution of the Hutu population in Eastern DRC. MONUSCO has turned into a foreign occupation force that only serves the interest of Western powers behind Museveni and Kagame.
3. No surprise that the final recommendation involves the US sending in the marines to hunt and kill FDLR leaders. This policy of assassinating leaders stems from the days of Patrice Lumumba, and countless other African leaders who refuse to bow to Western imperialism. The enforcer for this strategy, Kagame of Rwanda has turned assassination into an art form. So far Kagame has killed four African heads of States (Ndadaye of Burundi, Habyarimana of Rwanda, Ntaryamira of Rwanda, and Kabila of the DRC), countless politician and clergy members and he is not done yet.

People of goodwill all over the world, especially Africans do understand that this is not a DRC made problem. It originated from Uganda and Rwanda and it must be dealt with starting from those two countries. The regimes of Rwanda and Uganda, supported by the westerners who do not wish both of these countries to become democratic, as this would interfere with their imperialistic agenda in the region, created this problem by pushing an expansionist agenda that involves annexing both Kivus to Rwanda and Uganda If Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast  were seriously interested in solving both the FDLR and ADF problems in the region, they should have devoted their time promoting political dialogue among all stakeholders. This means that if the US, UN, and Enough Project had devoted ¼ of all resources they use on DRC issue preparing for political dialogue between Rwanda and FDLR on one hand, and Uganda and ADF on the other, we could have saved millions of lives from perishing due to these ill-fated military adventures that the Enough Project is so bent on promoting in the region. Rwandan refugees would have gone back home and Rwanda would be a democratic country right now, and the war between the FDLR and the ADF against their respective countries would be a thing of the past.

This article was written by a group of Rwandan Youth Refugees from all over the world calling upon both the international community and the leaders of the Southern African Development Community not to be lied to by the Enough Project’s propaganda designed to induce them into action to kill innocent Hutu refugees in DRC. We hope that other peace loving agents across the globe will read this article and understand that Enough Project is nothing else but a propaganda machinery hiding itself behind a charitable organization to carry out an unfulfilled mission left by the Clinton administration to establish a Hima kingdom in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Rwandans need nothing else but democracy, freedom of expression, and humanity. We want to elect our leaders and design our destiny without outside interference. Refugees want peace not bullets, they want to go back home build their lives not being given bombs and drones. We are all created equal and we should live in liberty and exercise our democratic rights. VIVA RWANDANS

UWAHOZE ARI CONSEILLER WA GIKORO AHAHOZE COMMUNE MUKINGO BWANA NEMEYE ALFRED AKABA NA MURAMU WA MAYOR KARABAYINGA NIWE WICISHIJE JOSEPH NZIRORERA ARUSHA

MURAMU WA KARABAYINGA

ATANGA ABAHOZE ARABASIRIKALI

GUSHINJA KAJERIJERI NA NZIRORERA JOSEPH ARUSHA

KWICISHA NZIRORERA JOSEPH ARUSHA

UMUKADA WA MBERE MUCYAHOZE ARI COMMUNE MUKINGO

AN AUSTRALIAN SOLDIER'S ACCOUNT ON HOW HE WITNESSED KAGAME'S TROOP MASSACRING HUTUS IN SOUTHERN RWANDA REGION OF KIBEHO IN 1995

Witness to Genocide -- A Personal Account of the 1995 Kibeho Massacre

by Paul Jordan

In April 1995 members of the Australian Defence Force Medical Support Force, a component of the Australian Contingent of the United Nations Assistance Mission For Rwanda (UNAMIR) were deployed to the Kibeho displaced persons’ camp. The camp had been surrounded by two battalions of Tutsi troops from the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), which regarded it as a sanctuary for Hutu perpetrators of the 1994 genocide. In the ethnic slaughter that followed, the RPA killed some 4000 of the camp’s inhabitants. The following article is an edited version of an eyewitness account of the massacre at Kibeho.

It was 5.00 p.m. on Tuesday, 18 April 1995, when 32 members of the Australian Medical Force (AMF) serving in Rwanda received orders to mount a mercy mission. Their task was to provide medical assistance to people who were being forced to leave what was then the largest displaced persons’ camp in Rwanda. This camp was situated some five hours west of the capital city of Kigali, close to the town of Kibeho, and was estimated to hold up to 100,000 displaced persons. I was a member of that Australian force deployed to Kibeho, which comprised two infantry sections, a medical section and a signals section. We left Kigali around 3.00 a.m. on Wednesday, 19 April, travelling through Butare and on to Gikongoro, where the Zambian Army’s UNAMIR contingent had established its headquarters. We arrived at Zambian headquarters at around 7.30a.m. and established a base area before continuing on to the displaced persons’ camp at Kibeho, arriving around 9.30 a.m. The camp resembled a ghost town. We had been told that the RPA intended to clear the camp that morning and our first thought was that this had already occurred -- we had arrived too late.

Map depicting events

1. Woman surrendered then executed in cold blood

2. Ambulance closely grazed by two bullets shot at lone displaced person

3. ZAMBATT (Zambian Battalion) latrines -- displaced persons found hiding inside

4. Triage area -- machete victims -- Saturday am 22.4.95

5. Highest ground in immediate area

6. RPA screening and processing -- displaced persons’ exit point for general evacuation

7. Beginning RPA accommodation

8. Our entry point each day and RPA roadblock

9. Recoilless rifle set up am 24·4·95

General information

• Map drawn 1500 hrs 28·4·95 Tpr JGS Church 

• Distance from church eastern side to RAP far western side = 1000m 

• Distance as seen extreme north to south 600m 

• Whole area dotted with lean-tos and grass bivouacs 

• All buildings and roads are on high ground 

• The valleys either side are quite deep—up to 80 m at 45° angle

As we moved through the camp, we saw evidence that it had been cleared very quickly. The place was littered with the displaced persons’ belongings, left behind in the sudden panic of movement. It wasn’t until we moved deep into the camp that we found them, thousands of frightened people who had been herded closely together like sheep, huddled along a ridgeline that ran through the camp. The RPA had used gunfire to gather and drive these people into a close concentration. In the frenzy of sudden crowd movement, ten children had been trampled to death. As we drove closer, the huge crowd parted before us and people began to clap and cheer: they obviously expected a great deal more from us than we could offer.

We set about the task of establishing a casualty clearing post and, after being moved on twice by RPA soldiers exercising their arbitrary authority, eventually negotiated a position just beyond the documentation area. We spent the day there and saw only one casualty, a UN soldier. We left the camp that day dogged by the frustrating sense of not being needed.

The next day, Thursday 19 April, we arrived at the camp at 8.30a.m. and moved through to what was designated the ‘Charlie Company’ compound, situated in the middle of the camp. Zambian troops on duty in the compound requested medical treatment for a woman who had given birth the previous night, as they thought that she ‘still had another baby inside her’. We arranged for the woman to be medically evacuated by air to Kigali, where it was discovered that she was suffering from a swollen bladder. We set up the casualty clearing post once again at the documentation point and, this time, went out to search for casualties.

RPA troops would frequently resort to firing their weapons into the air in an effort to control the crowd. At around 1.00 p.m., we heard sporadic fire, but could find no casualties. As the day wore on, tension mounted between the displaced persons and the RPA troops. We left the camp that evening amid the echoes of bursts of automatic fire. Leaving the camp was no easy feat because of the RPA roadblocks. We decided to follow a convoy carrying displaced persons out of the camp, but were held up when one of the convoy’s trucks became stuck in thick mud, blocking the exit road. Eventually we extricated ourselves and found a safe route out. Half an hour or so into our journey, we encountered a UNICEF official who informed us that he had received a radio message reporting that ten people had been shot dead in the camp. Because AMF personnel were not permitted to stay in the camp after dark, there was nothing we could do. We had no choice but to continue on to our base at Zambian headquarters.

On Friday, 20 April, we arrived in Kibeho at around 8.30 a.m. to find that thirty people had died during the night. Although the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital was busy treating casualties, we were told our assistance was not required at this stage. We set up the casualty clearing post at the documentation area (for what was to be the last time) and initially treated a few patients who were suffering from colds and various infections. Most of these were given antibiotics and sent on their way. A number of ragged young children appeared and, out of sight of the RPA soldiers, we gave the children new, dry clothes, for which they were most grateful. We also found a man whose femur was broken and decided to remove him from the camp in the back of our ambulance when we finally left for the night.

That evening, as we were preparing to leave, we received a call for assistance from the MSF hospital. Six ‘priority one’ patients required urgent evacuation. We picked up these casualties, all suffering from gunshot and machete wounds, and prepared them to travel. We called in the helicopter and the patients were flown to a hospital in Butare. The man with the broken femur could not be flown out because the helicopter was not fitted to take stretchers, so we prepared him for an uncomfortable ride in the back of the ambulance.

We returned to the Charlie Company compound where we found a man with a gunshot wound to the lung -- a sucking chest wound. He was in a serious condition. Because night was falling, we decided to evacuate him by road to the hospital in Butare along with the man with the broken femur. This meant negotiating the RPA checkpoints as we left the camp. As we persuaded our way through these checkpoints, Captain Carol Vaughan-Evans and Trooper Jon Church crouched in the rear of the ambulance, giving emergency treatment to the two patients.

We continued our journey accompanied by two military observers from Uruguay who were guiding us. We made steady progress for the next two hours until our front and rear vehicles became bogged. As efforts continued to recover the vehicles, Lieutenant Tilbrook decided to send the ambulance to the hospital as the patient with the chest wound was deteriorating. The two military observers were to accompany the ambulance. After a further hour and a half on the road, and with additional help from Care Australia, the patient was eventually handed over to the MSF hospital in Butare.

On Saturday, 22 April, we arrived at the camp to be told that the hospital was teeming with injured patients, but the MSF workers were nowhere to be found. We went to the hospital where the situation was absolutely chaotic. We saw about 100 people who had either been shot or macheted, or both. Their wounds were horrific and there was blood everywhere. One woman had been cleaved with a machete right through her nose down to her upper jaw. She sat silently and simply stared at us. There were numerous other people suffering from massive cuts to their heads, arms and all over their bodies. We immediately started to triage as many patients as possible, but just as we would begin to treat one patient, another would appear before us with far more serious injuries.

As we worked, we were often called upon to make snap decisions and to ‘play God’ by deciding which patients’ lives to save. We were forced to move many seriously injured victims to one side because we thought they would not live or because they would simply take too long to save. Instead, we concentrated on trying to save the lives of those people who, in our assessment, had a chance of survival.

At one point, an NGO worker took me outside the hospital to point out more casualties. There I discovered about thirty bodies, and was approached by a large number of displaced persons with fresh injuries. Jon Church and I were deeply concerned and returned to the hospital to triage patients. In amongst triaging priority one patients, Jon drew my attention to the patient he was treating. This man had a very deep machete wound through the eye and across the face. I saw Jon completely cover the wounded man’s face with a bandage. There was no danger that the patient would suffocate since he was breathing through a second wound in his throat. The wounded man was, however, very restless and difficult to control, and eventually we were forced to leave him, despite our belief that he would almost certainly die. Later that day he was brought to us again, his face still completely covered in a bandage. Whether the man finally survived his ordeal, only God knows.

As Jon and I worked with Lieutenant Rob Lucas (a nursing officer) to prioritise patients, members of the Australian infantry section stretchered them to the casualty clearing post. These soldiers worked tirelessly to move patients by stretcher from the hospital to the Zambian compound, which had become a casualty department. Meanwhile, the situation at the hospital was becoming increasingly dangerous, and we were ordered back to the compound. Some of the MSF workers had arrived by now and were trapped in the hospital. Our infantrymen went to retrieve them and bring them back to the safety of the compound. As our soldiers moved towards the hospital, they came under fire from a sniper within the crowd of displaced persons. The infantry section commander, Corporal Buskell, took aim at the sniper, and the latter, on seeing the rifle, disappeared into the crowd.

Our medical work continued unabated in the Zambian compound as the casualties flowed relentlessly. At about 10.00 a.m., some of the displaced persons attempted to break out and we saw them running through the re-entrants. We watched (and could do little more) as these people were hunted down and shot. The RPA soldiers were no marksmen: at times they were within ten metres of their quarry and still missed them. If they managed to wound some hapless escapee, they would save their valuable bullets, instead bayoneting their victim to death. This went on for two hours until all the displaced persons who had run were dead or dying.

The desperate work continued in the compound as we separated the treated patients, placing the more serious cases in the ambulance and the remainder in a Unimog truck. The firing intensified and the weather broke as it began to rain. We worked under the close security of our infantry as automatic fire peppered the area around us. We continued to treat the wounded, crouching behind the flimsy cover presented by the truck and sandbag wall. At one point, a young boy suddenly ran into the compound and fell to the ground. We later discovered that he had a piece of shrapnel in his lung. We managed to evacuate this boy by helicopter to the care of the Australian nurses in the intensive care unit at Kigali hospital. Every time a white person walks into his hospital room, he opens his arms to be hugged.

The automatic fire from the RPA troops continued; people were being shot all over the camp. When we had gathered about twenty-five casualties, we arranged to have them aeromedically evacuated to a hospital in Butare. While the ambulance was parked at the landing zone, a lone displaced person ran towards us with an RPA soldier chasing him. The soldier maintained a stream of fire at his fleeing victim, and rounds landed all around the ambulance. Jon and I ducked for cover behind its meagre protection. When the RPA soldier realised that some of his own officers were in his line of fire, he checked himself. The displaced person fell helplessly to the ground at the feet of the RPA officers. He was summarily marched away to meet an obvious fate.

It was about 4.00 p.m. by the time we started to load the patients onto helicopters, and, by 5.00 p.m., the job was complete. People began to run through the wire into the compound, and the Australian infantry found themselves alongside the Zambian soldiers pushing the desperate intruders back over the wire. This was a particularly delicate task, as some of the displaced persons were carrying grenades. As the last helicopter took off, about 2000 people stampeded down the spur away from the camp, making a frantic dash for safety. RPA soldiers took up positions on each spur, firing into the stampede with automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and a 50-calibre machine-gun. A large number of people fell under the hail of firepower. Fortunately, at this stage, it began to rain heavily, covering the escape of many of those fleeing. Bullets flew all around, and we made a very hasty trip back to the Zambian compound with the rear of the ambulance full of infantry.

Once back in the compound, we watched the carnage from behind sandbagged walls. Rocket-propelled grenades landed among the stampeding crowd, and ten people fell. One woman, about fifty metres from where we crouched, suddenly stood up, with her hands in the air. An RPA soldier walked down to her and marched her up the hill with his arm on her shoulder. He then turned and looked at us, pushed the woman to the ground and shot her.

As the rain eased, so did the firing. I was standing in the lee of the Zambian building when a young boy wearing blood-soaked clothing jumped the wire and walked towards me. I put my gloves on and the boy shook my hand and pointed to where a bullet had entered his nose, indicating to me that the bullet was still caught in his jaw. We took the boy with us and, given that the firing had died down and darkness had fallen, we put him into the ambulance next to a man with an open abdominal wound, and prepared them for the long journey to hospital by road.

As we left the camp, Jon and another medic saw a small child wandering alone. They made an instant decision to save the child, putting her in the ambulance as well. We then faced the unwanted distraction of a screaming three-year-old girl while we were frantically working on two seriously wounded patients. We knew also that the RPA would search the vehicle and any displaced persons without injuries would be taken back to the camp. I decided to bandage the girls’s left arm in order to fake a wound. The first time we were searched, the girl waved and spoke to the RPA soldiers. So we moved her up onto the blanket rack in the ambulance, strapped her in, and gave her a biscuit. The next time we were searched, the girl just sat and ate her biscuit, saying nothing. The RPA soldiers never knew she was there. After being held up at a roadblock for an hour, the convoy, which included all the NGO workers, made its way out of the camp. All the patients were taken to Butare Hospital, while the little girl was taken to an orphanage where we knew an attempt would be made to reunite her with her mother, in the unlikely event that she was still alive.

We re-entered the camp at 6.30 a.m. on Sunday, 23 April. While our mission was to count the number of dead bodies, Warrant Officer Scott and I went first to look around the hospital. Inside there were about fifteen dead. We entered one room and a small boy smiled then grinned at us. Scotty and I decided we would come back and retrieve this boy. I took half the infantry section and Scotty took the other half, and we walked each side of the road that divided the camp.

On one side of the road, my half-section covered the hospital that contained fifteen corpses. In the hospital courtyard we found another hundred or so dead people. A large number of these were mothers who had been killed with their babies still strapped to their backs. We freed all the babies we could see. We saw dozens of children just sitting amidst piles of rubbish, some crouched next to dead bodies. The courtyard was littered with debris and, as I waded through the rubbish, it would move to expose a baby who had been crushed to death. I counted twenty crushed babies, but I could not turn over every piece of rubbish.

The Zambians were collecting the lost children and placing them together for the agencies to collect. Along the stretch of road near the documentation point, there were another 200 bodies lined up for burial. The other counting party had seen many more dead than we had. There were survivors too. On his return to camp, Jon saw a baby who was only a few days old lying in a puddle of mud. He was still alive. Jon picked the baby up and gave him to the Zambians. At the end of our grisly count, the total number recorded by the two half-sections was approximately 4000 dead and 650 wounded.

We returned to the Zambian compound and began to treat the wounded. By now we had been reinforced with medics and another doctor. With the gunfire diminished, we were able to establish the casualty clearing post outside the Zambian compound and, with extra manpower and trucks to transport patients, we managed to clear about eighty-five casualties. A Ghanaian Army major approached Scotty and I to collect two displaced persons who had broken femurs from another area nearby. We lifted the two injured men into the back of the major’s car. It was then that we noticed all the dead being buried by the RPA in what I believe was an attempt to reduce the body count. The Zambians also buried the dead, but only those who lay near their compound.

We had been offered a helicopter for an aeromedical evacuation. We readied our four worst casualties, placing them on the landing zone for evacuation. The RPA troops came, as they always did, to inspect those being evacuated. At the same time, a Zambian soldier brought us a small boy who had been shot in the backside. The RPA told us that we could only take three of the casualties, as the fourth was a suspect. I argued and argued with an RPA major, but met with unbending refusal. He did tell us, however, that we could take the small boy who we hadn’t even asked to take, so we quickly put the boy into the waiting helicopter. The RPA officer then demanded that one of his men, who had been shot, be evacuated in the helicopter. I tried to bargain with the RPA major. In return for taking his soldier to hospital, I asked that we be allowed to evacuate the fourth casualty. His reply was final: ‘Either my man goes or no-one goes’. It was time to stop arguing.

The majority of patients we evacuated that day were transported on the back of a truck. The pain caused by the jolting of the truck would have been immense, but even this amount of pain was better than death. Jon and I took another load of patients to the landing zone, as they were to go on the same helicopter as the CO and the RSM. To our amazement, we were recalled and watched in frustration as the helicopter was filled with journalists. That day, all our patients left unaccompanied.

Just before our departure that evening, Jon and I were called to look at a man who had somehow fallen into the pit latrine, which was about 12 feet deep. I suppose he thought this to be the safest place. We left the camp at about 5.00 p.m. and spent the night at the Bravo Company position which was only half an hour away.

On Monday, 24 April, we returned to the camp which, at this stage, held only about 400 people. The RPA had set up a recoilless rifle, which pointed at one of the buildings they claimed housed Hutu criminals who had taken part in the 1994 genocide. Throughout the morning we saw displaced persons jumping off the roof of the building and, on two occasions, we saw AK 47 assault rifles being carried. The RPA gave us until midday to clear the camp, at which time they stated that they would fire the weapon into the building. We knew this would kill or injure the vast majority of those left in the camp.

Meanwhile the Zambians were busy digging two men out of the pit latrines. They were quite a sight when they were pulled out. The Zambian major planned to sweep through the building and push people out, and wanted us to bolster his ranks. Obtaining permission from headquarters to help the Zambians proved something of an ordeal, to my mind, the result of a surfeit of chiefs. Consequently, we were a crucial ten minutes late helping them.

We discovered a number of injured people huddled in a room directly adjacent to the building containing the Hutus. As we moved in to retrieve the casualties, a Hutu pointed his weapon at us, but rapidly changed his mind when ten Australian rifles were pointed straight back at him. We used this building as a starting point, evacuating all those in the room in Red Cross trucks. It was at this point that we struck a major obstacle. The criminal element within the camp had spread the word that those who accompanied the white people from the camp would be macheted to death on reaching their destination. This was widely believed and, as a result, only a few people could be persuaded to leave the camp that morning. On several occasions, women handed over their children to us, believing that ‘the white people will not kill children’.

The Australians found the attitude of these people incredibly frustrating. We could find no way to convince the majority of the displaced persons to leave Kibeho for the safety that we could provide. Many said that it was better to die where they were than to die in another camp. Even when we did succeed in persuading some to leave, a Hutu would often appear and warn those people that they would be macheted if they left with the Australians. This was a warning that never went unheeded.

At 2.00 p.m. that day, we were rotated out of the camp. We felt sick with resentment at leaving the job incomplete, but there was very little that we could have done for those people. We estimated that at least 4000 people had been killed over that weekend. While there was little that we could have done to stop the killings, I believe that, if Australians had not been there as witnesses to the massacre, the RPA would have killed every single person in the camp.

Permission to reprint this story as published in the Australian Army Journal is gratefully acknowledged.

USA: FPR YAHEMBYE MANEKO WANETSE ABANYARWANDA BIMPUNZI KURUSHA ABANDI MUMUGAMBI MUBISHA WA RWANDA DIASPORA

By KABIRIMA ISAAC

Abanyarwanda bintasi za leta ya FPR biganjemo abasore basabye ubuhungiro hano muri Amerika kandi bakorera FPR baba muri Leza za Indiana na Michigan, bahaye igihembo cyagahimbaza musyi maneko wa DMI witwa Rutsobe Nsengiyumva nk’umuntu wagejeje amakuru menshi yerekeranye nabanyarwanda baba mukarere atuyemo mu  mwaka wa 2014. Akarusho ngo kaba kari mukuntu agenda akora amaliste yabahutu nabandi batutsi bimpunzi zidashibgikiye leta ya FPR baba aho bahungiye muri USA. 

FPR rero mumugambi wayo wa Diaspora nyarwanda yateguriye uwo muhango  mu Mujyi wa Granger wo muri Leta ya Indiana (USA). Ibinyamakuru hycu kandi byashoboye kohereza abanyamakuru muri uwo muhango kugirango tunabagezeho amafoto yabicanyi bakorera FPR na DMI bigize impunzi hano muriUSA. Iki gihembo yahawe cyiswe “Community Service Award” Rutsobe Nsengiyumva yagishyikirijwe mu birori ngarukamwaka bihuza Abanyarwanda batuye muri diaspora ya Midwest ho muri Leta Zunze Ubumwe za Amerika.

Ibumoso, Rutsobe arahabwa n'umuyobozi icyemezo cy'ishimwe.

Uyu Rutsobe Nsengiyumva asanzwe ari maneko mukuru wa FPR wigize impunzi hano muri aka gace ubundi akaba yarahoze no mungabo za FPR. Yashimwe nk’uwagize ubwitange mu kubuza amahoro abanyarwanda bimpunzi baba muri kano gace kandi akaba ngo yarakoze amaliste maremare. Tubibutseko ali nokurutonde rwabahembwa na leta ya Kagame abinyujije muri ambassade yayo hano muri USA. 

Bwana Gaetan Gatete, maneko mukuru ucyuye igihe, ubu akaba ayoboye Diaspora Nyarwanda ya Amerika, yahawe Ijambo, ashimira abo bakoranye, anibutsa abari bahari ibyo bagezeho kuri manda ye. Yasabye komite nshya gukomereza aho bagejeje abifuriza ishya n’ihirwe mu mirimo mishya y’ubwitange batangiye. Kandi akomeza ababwira ko ntawe ugomba kuva muri FPR ngo agire amahoro.

Madamu Edna Mbangukira, umumaneko mukuru ushinzwe kuneka abategarugori babanyarwanda baba muri US akaba atuye mu karere ka Grand Rapids ho muri Michigan, yahawe ijambo, ageze ku bari ari mu gitaramo, ubutumwa bw’abo yari ahagarariye, kandi aboneraho no kwerekena ku muragaragaro abagize Komite nshya ishinzwe gukorana umurava muguhiga impunzi zabanyarwanda ababwirako ibikoresho byamaze kubageraho ko ubishaka byamugeraho ntangorane. Ahngaha akaba arimo kuvuga Utuzi twa Munyuza aritwo burozi bwa FPR bagenda bicisha impunzi zabanyarwanda. 

Mu bandi bagize impanuro batanga harimo Nxumalo Louis Ruhaya maneko mukuru wa DMI wavuye muri RPF maze akiyita umunyamurenge akza guhabwa ubuhungiro muri US akaba ayobora Umuryango w’Abanyarwanda bibumbiye muri Diaspora ya Midwest, wabasabye ko bakwiye kugira umuco w’ubutwari, gukunda igihugu ndetse no gushyira hamwe.

Ruhaya yavuze ko asanga iyi Diaspora isigaye ifatwa nk’icyitegererezo muri za Diaspora zindi, bitewe n’intego yihaye yo gutahiriza umugozi umwe, mu bikorwa binyuranye bishyigikira gahunda z’ igihugu.

Ruhaya yashimiye cyane urubyiruko rwitabiriye uyu mulimo wo kuneka impunzi zabanyarwanda anarwibutsa gukomeza gukorana umurava no kugera ikirenge mu cyabarubanjirije kugirango umuryango wabo ukomeze intego yawo yo gushigirikira ingoma ya FPR.

Ruhaya yanaboneyeho akanya ko kwakira Madamu Alice Kabagire Cyusa, uherutse gutorerwa kuba umukozi wa FPR DMI  akaba azaneka Abanyarwanda baba mu mahanga. Yibukije abaraho ko FPR iri mubibazo byinshi ko ntabandi bayikiza uretse abaraho bagakorana umurava mugusiga ibyaha impunzi zirenngana bagaha uburozi abo bashoboye kugeraho.

Ibirori byashojwe n’inkera nyarwanda, aho mu busabane bwinshi abari aho basusutse bacinya akadiho mu gitaramo n’imbyino nyarwanda.

DORE BAMWE MURI ZA MANEKO ZA FPR ZARI ZABUKEREYE

AN ARMED GANG FROM SOUTHERN RWANDA IN NYUNGWE FOREST WHO HAD ATTACKED BURUNDI HAS BEEN CRASHED

AN ARMED GANG FROM SOUTHERN RWANDA IN NYUNGWE FOREST WHO HAD ATTACKED BURUNDI HAS BEEN CRASHED

BY VYIRINGIRO

Our reporters have learned that the government of Rwanda is in mourning now after its second setback when the Rwanda supported Burundian rebels who had attempted to attack Burundi was thwarted. This is another blow of the RPF government which has been a source of conflict in the region since 1990s after its baby Tutsi led rebel the M23 was crashed to the ground by the joint SADC force led by Tanzania and South Africa in 2013.

After the defeat of the M23 whose scattered Tutsi rebels took refugee to Rwanda and Burundi Mr. Paul Kagame of Rwanda never gave up his bid to safeguard its quickly crumbling regime. he instead started courting the Burundian opposition through IKIBIBI Party which receives money from the Kigali government to destabilize the Burundian government led by Mr. Nkurunziza Pierre.

According to our reporters the heavily armed group from southern Rwanda in NYUNGWE forest was defeated after five days of heavy fighting in Burundi. At least 100 people have been killed after a cross-border attack against the security arms of the Burundian government led by Pierre Nkurunziza  from the Southern Rwandan forest of Nyungwe which creates suspicion of the role of the kigali government in supporting these rebels. Here we can remind our leaders that our sister newsonline Karisimbi Online had published a confidential information from the Rwandan intelligence that detailed the RPF plans to send Tutsi prostitute to Bujumbura to gather intelligence on how to invade the country of Burundi.

Some Burundian military general in the Burundian army who spoke on conditions of anonymity  on Thursday told KIGALI EVENING NIGHT that the raid by the rebels supported by the Kagame government and some of the Burundian oppositions parties including IKIBIRI  had been thwarted after some days of heavy fighting in the border area north of the Burundian capital of Bujumbura.

 "It  is true that after some days of non-stop military fighting in the northern Burundi, the armed group which attacked Burundi has been wiped out by our security forces. More that 200 armed men were killed  and over a 100 were captured, Our reports say that more than 400 armed men had  entered Cibitoke province from our neighboring countries," the general said. "We also seized a 60mm mortar, five rocket launchers, machine guns and more than 100 assault rifles and some of them have serial number of the Rwandan military equipment."

The general said the Burundian army had lost two soldiers. Other military sources said that around 12 soldiers were killed in the fighting. He further said that more than 23 people captured by the Burundian army 7 of them have Rwandan military uniform which confirms the general belief that Rwanda has a hand in the attack. 

There was no further confirmation of the claim, with Colonel Gaspard Baratuza, army spokesperson, declining to comment officially on the fighting "while military operations in the area are still in progress". A previous toll given on Wednesday put the toll at 35 dead, including 34 rebels and one government soldier.

Burundian officials and witnesses said the group of unidentified fighters crossed into the country overnight on Monday from Southern Rwandan forest of Nyungwe and another group was from eastern Kivu region, a chronically unstable and resource-rich area that is home to dozens of rebel groups.

Baratuza said troops had seized documents allowing the army to get information on the size of the force and the identity of their leaders, but he did not disclose the identity of the group