THE UN Secretary General, Dr Boutros Boutros Ghali, yesterday threw his support behind the dispatch of a multinational military force to deal with the crisis in eastern Zaire, where more than a million refugees are without food and medical care. The Security Council is already considering a resolution to set up such a force.
"Given the need for urgent action if tens of thousands of lives are to be saved, time is of the essence, Dr Boutros Ghali said in a letter to the Indonesian council president.
He said it would take too long to deploy a UN peace keeping force or one set up by countries of the region.
Meanwhile yesterday, Britain and France agreed to take part in international relief efforts for the refugees trapped in Zaire, and the British Prime Minister, Mr John Major, suggested Britain might agree to send troops.
The deal, reached at a bilateral summit held in Bordeaux, partly patched up discord over a Franco Spanish plan for an international force of 5,000 troops to help 1.2 million Hutu refugees.
"The two countries have agreed to co ordinate their efforts closely so that the necessary international arrangements can swiftly be put into place to enable humanitarian aid reliably to reach displaced persons and refugees in Zaire once again," a joint statement said.
France accused the world this week of being "spineless" in its reaction to the crisis in Zaire.
However, Rwanda said it opposed French participation in a UN intervention force.
"France and even Rwanda should abstain from contributing troops. The force must be neutral and countries with interests must not participate in the operation," Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu told a news conference in his capital Kigali after talks with a UN special envoy.
UN agencies said yesterday it was too dangerous for them to do anything to help hundreds of thousands of refugees in eastern Zaire and expressed bitterness at their impotence.
With stocks of aid piling up around east Africa to feed and shelter the refugees when it is once more safe to do so, the agencies said they were powerless.
Ms Ruth Marshall, spokeswoman for the UNHCR, also regretted the international community had failed to come forward earlier to help separate extremists from bona fide Rwandan Hutu refugees in camps in eastern Zaire.
A spokeswoman for the UNICEF cited refugee women arriving at the Rwandan border as having left their dead or dying children behind.
Cholera could quickly kill up to 150,000 refugees unless good quality drinking water reaches them in the coming days, the International Federation of Red
Cross Societies warned.
An aid worker said eastern Zaire's multi sided war was having an impact on wide stretches of the country as many frightened villagers fled to the bush.
Mr Andrew Hunt of Christian Aid said he flew over much of eastern Zaire this week and saw semi deserted villages and normally busy roads now empty.
Action for Churches Together (ACT) told a meeting in Nairobi yesterday that an aerial survey this week had revealed a large concentration of people in the jungle between Hombo and Walikale.
ACT said the mixture of Rwandan refugees and displaced Zaireans had survived in the jungle for about three weeks and were in a bad condition: they were tense and robbing each other.
"People are already starting to die and we estimate that by the end of the month over 80,000 children under three will die "Ms Catherine Bertini, executive director of the World Food Programme, said.
Three Spanish priests were killed on Thursday night in the war zone near the Zairean city of Bukavu, a spokesman for the Spanish Foreign Ministry said.
"It wasn't an accident, they were assassinated," he said.
