UNITED NATIONS, April 7 -- The United Nations said Thursday 10 Belgian soldiers and possibly an 11th were killed in Rwanda when fighting broke out following the death of that country's president in a plane crash.
U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said U.N. officials in Kigali, Rwanda's capital, have identified the bodies of the 10 Belgians.
'We are talking about the bodies of 10 Belgians that have been identified,' Eckhard said. He said the 11th body found near the airport of Kigali is also 'possibly' a Belgian.
Conflicting reports marred the first day following the plane crash that killed Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and his counterpart from Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamina. Both were returning from an African summit in Dar-es-Salaam, the capital of Tanzania.
Eckhard said the U.N. headquarters in New York also received a report that among those possibly killed in the violence were the prime minister, the finance and agriculture ministers and the president of the constitutional court.
But he said there was no way the headquarters could confirm those deaths immediately. Sporadic fighting was reported throughout Kigali, and the main international airport was closed, apparently by troops loyal to Habyarimana.
The United Nations said its personnel could not get close to the airport to look at the wreckage of the plane and investigate the cause of the incident.
Rwandan officials and Burundi's ambassador to the United States, Jacques Bacamurwanko, said the plane was destroyed by a rocket fired from the ground.
Eckhard said those reportedly killed in the fighting belonged to the four parties that formed the opposition group in the five-party coalition government headed by President Habyarimana.
Habyarimana, who had been in power for 21 years, headed the fifth party. A Hutu tribesman, he had been in conflict with the Tutsis, who are a minority in the country and gained only a minimal representation in the government.
Recent fighting between the two tribes had killed thousands and sent tens of thousands of refugees into neighboring countries.
The U.N. Security Council met Thursday to review the situation in the African country and the fate of its 2,500 peacekeepers sent to try to implement the Arusha peace agreement signed between the parties last August.
The council said in a statement that fighting since Wednesday has caused 'considerable loss of lives, including the deaths of government leaders, many civilians and at least 10 Belgian peacekeepers as well as the reported kidnapping of others.'
'The council strongly condemns these horrific attacks and their perpetrators, who must be held responsible,' the statement said.
It called on Rwandan factions to cooperate with the U.N. peacekeepers and respect the peace agreement, particularly the cease-fire. It called for free access to the Kigali airport, which was closed to traffics since the incident that killed the two presidents.
Chinmaya Gharekhan, a political adviser to the U.N. secretary- general, said earlier that the situation in Kigali was 'bad and has deteriorated dramatically.'
The civil war in Rwanda ended late last year with the Arusha peace agreement, which called for a transitional government and election of a new one.
The transitional government was supposed to be formed in January before the deployment of the U.N. force. But the force was sent anyway to ensure implementation of the agreement.
Besides its 2,500 peacekeepers, the United Nations is employing also about 200 civilians in development projects.
