Rwandan hijack bid fails

GENEVA, Aug 10: More than 100 Rwandans being deported from Gabon to their homeland tried to hijack their plane to a third country on Saturd...

GENEVA, Aug 10: More than 100 Rwandans being deported from Gabon to their homeland tried to hijack their plane to a third country on Saturday, the United Nations (UN) Refugee agency said. Despite attempts to overpower him, the Pilot managed to land safely back in Gabon and escape through the cockpit window.

The plane was then surrounded by troops and there were reports of refugees being beaten up on the tarmac, said Pam O’Toole, a spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The refugee agency was ordered out of the airport in the Gabonese town of Franceville and had no

information about the fate of the Rwandans, she said.

The 115 Rwandans were among a group of some 250 Hutus who made the long trek to Gabon earlier this year out of fear that the new Government in the Congo would send them home.

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Many are former soldiers from the Hutu armed forces accused of instigating the 1994 genocide that left some 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead in Rwanda.

Officials from the International Tribunal for Rwanda had spent the past several days in Gabon interviewing the men to find out who had witnessed atrocities and who had taken part in them.

The Rwandans had said they would rather face trial by the UN tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, than risk reprisals from the Tutsi-led Government in Rwanda.