UNITED NATIONS officials have named the five human rights observers killed in an ambush in Rwanda, as humanitarian relief groups tried to acknowledge what appears to be a campaign to force them out of the country.
The five - a Briton, a Cambodian and three Rwandans - were killed on Tuesday while they were driving in marked UN vehicles in the south western province of Cyangugu.
Officials of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva named the Briton as Mr Graham Turnbull, who headed its mission in Cyangugu province.
The others were Cambodian Mr Sastra Chim Chan (who was decapitated) and Rwandans Mr Jean Bosco Munyaneza, Mr Aimable Nsensiyumvu and Mr Agripain Ngabo. Their bodies have been returned to the capital, Kigali.
It was not immediately clear who carried out the attack. It is the first time that human rights observers have been killed in Rwanda.
The UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, said he was "shocked and dismayed" at the deaths.
"They were shot and killed in what appears to be an ambush, while carrying out their normal work and circulating in clearly marked United Nations vehicles," said Ms Marie van der Elst, spokeswoman for the UN human rights mission in Rwanda.
Ms van der Elst said the UN had suspended temporarily its operations in the western provinces of Cyangugu and Kibuye, and was considering doing the same in Gitarama province.
UN human rights observers were also withdrawn from the northwest regions of Gisenyi and Ruhengeri in January, following the killing of three workers from the medical aid group Medecins du Monde.
Aid workers said the Spaniards were killed in cold blood. An American working with the three victims survived the attack but suffered serious injuries to one leg which had to be amputated. A Canadian monk was killed in the same area last Sunday as he celebrated Mass.
A communique released in Nairobi on Tuesday said the UN had tightened security. Despite increasing stability since the genocide and civil war in 1994, Rwanda remains deeply troubled by ethnic conflict between the majority Hutu and the ruling Tutsi ethnic groups.
In its annual report published last week, the UN High Commissioner said that more than 200 survivors of the 1994 genocide were killed last year in Rwanda, mostly by soldiers and supporters of the former Hutu regime who are blamed for the 1994 massacres.
UN human rights, observers have also been active in overseeing the trial of suspects accused of baking part in the genocide. They have criticised the fact that many of the defendants have no legal representation.
Rwanda is attempting to absorb some 1.2 million refugees who have returned during the past four months after three years in exile in neighbouring Zaire and Tanzania.
AFP adds from Goma:
The Zairean rebel leader, Mr Laurent Desire Kabila, said yesterday in his eastern rebel stronghold that his forces were advancing on all fronts in their campaign to topple the government.
He said his troops were continuing their advance in the rich mining province of Shaba in the south where they captured the strategic Lake Tanganyika port of Kalemie on Monday.
If confirmed, the latest rebel advances would further undermine a faltering campaign by the Zairean Armed Forces (FAZ), in disarray and under equipped in the face of a well disciplined and well supplied rebellion.
The rebels have given the authorities in Kinshasa until February 21st to start negotiations or face a "general offensive".
But a spokesman for President Mobutu Sese Seko, speaking in Morocco where the President is seeking military aid, said: "There is no question of having a dialogue with the rebels for the simple reason that these people are puppets manipulated by Rwanda and Uganda."