Rwanda Relief

Monique Nagelkerke, a Dutch nurse, wasn't surprised when one of the first Rwandan refugees to stumble into her new field clinic here Saturday simply collapsed and died. After all, the old woman had walked for three days after fleeing the hunger and disease of the refugee camps in eastern Zaire. The road was long and hard, a cold climb through rugged mountains. No food was distributed along the way.

Senior United Nations and other international aid officials meeting here Thursday suddenly froze in stunned silence when a U.N. security officer angrily accosted others at the table. "How many bodies do you want?" he said emotionally. "We're soft targets! And we make headlines." The outburst highlighted the anguished debate that has erupted here over the role and responsibilities of international aid workers. At issue is whether Rwanda suddenly has become too dangerous for the U.N.

The first U.N. relief flight in weeks landed at Kigali airport as efforts were stepped up to forge a cease-fire between victorious Rwandan rebels and remaining government forces. The Canadian military transport plane flew to the Rwandan capital from Nairobi, Kenya, with supplies and troop reinforcements for the small U.N. contingent that has battled for weeks to save people from slaughter. "You are welcome," Maj. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, commander of U.N.

Citing a deadly surge of attacks on humanitarian aid groups, the United Nations withdrew hundreds of expatriate and Rwandan relief workers from western Rwanda in armed convoys Wednesday and sharply curtailed operations in the rest of this increasingly tense country. The emergency pullout from four provinces followed the brutal ambush Tuesday of five U.N.

Carol Patterson and other residents of the Harbor Health Care nursing home in Fullerton were so moved by the television pictures of suffering in Rwanda and Zaire that they decided to do something about it. This morning they will open a drop-off point for donations to the Rwandan relief effort. "We've been watching the pictures and talking about it. We wished we could do something," said Patterson, a retired Costa Mesa schoolteacher. "Here's an opportunity to help."

Foaming at the mouth and panting, the parched and emaciated boy lay on an olive-drab stretcher, the body inside his yellow-and-red T-shirt wasted down to the size of a healthy 2-year-old. Cpl. Kevin Kus, 37, held a thick syringe of solution of rehydration salts in his hands, squeezing it drip by drip into the clear plastic tube that led into the boy's nose. A father himself, the small, stocky soldier from Sheffield, England, was stunned at how small the 5-year-old Rwandan had become.

The acrid stench of death filled the air here Thursday, as hundreds upon hundreds of corpses--a few here, a dozen a few yards farther, 25 more just beyond--lined dusty roads and littered the cruel fields of what has become the world's closest glimpse of hell.

The first U.S. troops landed in the Rwandan capital Saturday to secure the airport for an expanded international aid effort. The next step is encouraging millions of scared, displaced people to return home. President Clinton on Friday ordered 200 U.S. soldiers to Kigali to support the relief effort in Rwanda, where millions have fled their homes to escape ethnic carnage that killed up to 500,000 people. Defense Secretary William J. Perry was scheduled to inspect the U.S. aid mission today. Lt.

Desperately needed food and water finally arrived at this nightmarish camp for 150,000 sick and weakened Rwandan refugees Saturday, but the living literally had to walk over and around the dead to reach it. Corpses of cholera victims, many of them uncovered and rotting in the hot African sun, piled up on this desolate volcanic wasteland.

Citing a deadly surge of attacks on humanitarian aid groups, the United Nations withdrew hundreds of expatriate and Rwandan relief workers from western Rwanda in armed convoys Wednesday and sharply curtailed operations in the rest of this increasingly tense country. The emergency pullout from four provinces followed the brutal ambush Tuesday of five U.N.

After three weeks hiking through thick jungle and across jagged lava fields, Misti Bihirimati and hundreds of other hungry and exhausted refugees straggled into this beleaguered border town Thursday. But his plea for help was for those left behind in the Zairian interior. "There are many people in the mountains without food," the 43-year-old Hutu said. "They are very tired. And many are dying." The question is how many--and where? But the answers are politically charged and far from clear.

Plans for a Canadian-led international relief mission to Central Africa moved ahead Wednesday despite a continuing dispute over whether it is still needed. "The brakes are not on, the operation is not on hold," Canadian Deputy Foreign Minister Gordon Smith told reporters here after a meeting of U.N. officials, representatives of nations contributing to the proposed expedition and African delegates.

The Clinton administration, clearly relieved by a surge of Rwandan refugees heading home, sharply scaled back its Central African relief program Tuesday, canceling plans to send a battalion of paratroopers and deciding instead to dispatch a small contingent of support personnel. Defense Secretary William J.

Braving the drizzle at Long Beach Airport on Wednesday, schoolchildren watched workers load about 70,000 shoe boxes filled with toys onto a cargo plane headed for Bosnia, Rwanda and other war-torn areas, where children with a lot more than bad weather on their minds will receive the gifts.

Steve McCall, chief of staff of the U.S. Agency for International Development, blasted U.N. and other agencies for "doing a miserable job" in Rwanda and said they should adapt or be replaced. McCall singled out the United Nations Development Program and the World Bank for being ineffective in responding to Rwanda's post-war needs. Up to a million Tutsis and Hutus were massacred last year during a four-month civil war.

Purple wildflowers and weeds now shroud the unmarked mass graves. The once grisly dump trucks cart mounds of garbage, not corpses. Fresh water gushes from countless taps, and the rain-washed air is clean and clear. Ambulances rush the sick to some of Africa's best-equipped hospitals, where they are treated by experts from around the world.

Steve McCall, chief of staff of the U.S. Agency for International Development, blasted U.N. and other agencies for "doing a miserable job" in Rwanda and said they should adapt or be replaced. McCall singled out the United Nations Development Program and the World Bank for being ineffective in responding to Rwanda's post-war needs. Up to a million Tutsis and Hutus were massacred last year during a four-month civil war.

The United Nations sent blankets, soap and water cans to aid stations along the road into Rwanda on Saturday in a stepped-up effort to help refugees straggling home. In the crowded camps around Goma, aid workers resumed food distribution in one of the largest settlements at Katale, lifting a one-day suspension prompted by deadly clashes between refugees and pilfering Zairian soldiers. U.N.

A team of Orange County missionaries who recently returned from Rwanda said they found orphans with pneumonia and tuberculosis and no medicine to treat them, children with raging ear infections, and a child considered deaf but who could hear if only he had a hearing aid. The 12-day trip by Safe Harbor International, which is part of Calvary Chapel in Rancho Santa Margarita, took the missionaries to orphanages bursting with children.

Foaming at the mouth and panting, the parched and emaciated boy lay on an olive-drab stretcher, the body inside his yellow-and-red T-shirt wasted down to the size of a healthy 2-year-old. Cpl. Kevin Kus, 37, held a thick syringe of solution of rehydration salts in his hands, squeezing it drip by drip into the clear plastic tube that led into the boy's nose. A father himself, the small, stocky soldier from Sheffield, England, was stunned at how small the 5-year-old Rwandan had become.