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

DATE: THURSDAY, April 28, 1994                   TAG: 9404280209
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NAIROBI, KENYA                                 LENGTH: Medium

MAIMED RWANDAN ORPHANS EVACUATED

The United Nations took 44 orphans to Uganda, including 20 who were seriously wounded. The children were butchered, many with arms and legs cut off, in attacks on an orphanage in Muhura, about 22 miles northeast of Kigali, the Rwandan capital, officials with the U.N. World Food Program said.

The children range in age from a few weeks to 11 years old, said Trevor Page, World Food Program coordinator in Kampala, Uganda. Page said at least 10 of the children were in critical condition. The identity of the attackers was not known.

The government said Wednesday it is not able to stop the ethnic bloodletting that relief workers estimate has killed 100,000 people and forced 1.3 million to flee their homes.

On Wednesday, intense fighting with heavy-caliber weapons and mortars was reported near the U.N. headquarters and in the center of Kigali, U.N. spokesman Abdul Kabia said by telephone from the capital.

Unilateral cease-fires declared by both sides Monday were broken almost immediately. Neither side has responded to a U.N. appeal for a truce, Kabia said.

U.N. observers said ethnic killings were continuing in southern and eastern Rwanda, areas controlled by the government and armed militias.

Commerce Minister Justin Mugenzi told reporters the army could not halt the bloodshed by gangs of armed youths because ``all the government troops are on the front,'' but reporters and aid workers have seen government soldiers standing by in Kigali and elsewhere as armed gangs hacked and beat people to death.

Some reporters have seen soldiers participating in the slaughter of civilians.