GENEVA - The UN refugee agency said yesterday it was excluding from refugee status 20 Rwandans indicted by an international tribunal for crimes against civilians during the mass ethnic killings of 1994.
Meanwhile, a human rights report yesterday detailed horrifying sexual abuse of women by Rwandan Hutu troops and militia in the genocide of up to a million people in 1994. The report by the US based Human Rights Watch and the international Federation of Human Rights Leagues included testimonies from women individually raped, gang raped, raped with objects or sexually mutilated.
The Rwandan army said yesterday it exchanged eight hours of heavy gunfire with Zairean government forces in the border town of Bukavu overnight.