
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 7, 1994                   TAG: 9404070337
SECTION: NATL/INT                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

2 AFRICAN LEADERS KILLED

The presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were killed Wednesday in a plane crash near the airport in Rwanda's capital. Rwandan diplomats charged that the plane had been shot down.

Presidents Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprian Ntayamira of Burundi had been in Tanzania for a meeting of east-central African leaders seeking ways to end ethnic violence in the two countries.

Rwanda and Burundi have been wracked by bloodletting between the rival Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups.

The plane went down while approaching the airport in Kigali, capital of Rwanda, according to Chinmaya Gharekhan of India, a special political adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

The French Embassy in Kigali confirmed that both presidents were killed in the crash.

Rwanda's U.N. ambassador, Jean Damascene Bizimana, told the Security Council the crash was not an accident but an assassination. He said the plane was hit by rocket fire, but did not say who attacked.

Francois Ngarukintwali, the Rwandan ambassador in Brussels, Belgium, quoted the chief of staff of the Rwandan cabinet, Enoch Ruhigira, as saying that the plane was attacked.

``It was shot down. It's true. It burned,'' Ngarukintwali told The Associated Press, adding he could not confirm the deaths.

Ntayamira took over as Rwanda's leader after Melchoir Ndadaye won the first democratic election last June but was killed in a failed military coup in October.

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB