300 slain in bid to free Hutu killers
MORE than 300 people were killed when about 1,500 Hutu extremists attacked a Rwandan jail in an attempt to free hundreds of prisoners awaiting trial on genocide charges. MORE than 300 people were killed when about 1,500 Hutu extremists attacked a Rwandan jail in an attempt to free hundreds of prisoners awaiting trial on genocide charges.
The dead at Giciye prison included 200 Hutu attackers, 88 prisoners, and two soldiers. Ninety-three prisoners escaped.
The attack was the biggest operation carried out by the Hutu extremists, known as the Interahamwe (``those who kill together''), since most Hutu refugees returned to Rwanda two years ago.
It was part of a strategy to finish off the Tutsis and retake control of the tiny Central African country.
Documents abandoned by the Interahamwe fleeing Tutsi attacks on refugee camps inside the neighbouring Congo (then Zaire) showed that the Hutu extremist leadership had been planning to retake Rwanda from the Tutsis who drove them from power.
(The Times, London)
