U.S. Help Sought for Evacuation

KIGALI, Rwanda — The commander of U.N. troops in Rwanda appealed to the United States on Wednesday to send armored personnel carriers and other equipment to help evacuate thousands of refugees.

A U.S. official said later in Washington that the commander will get about 50 vehicles and that arrangements are being worked out.

The commander, Brig. Gen. Romeo Dallaire of Canada, also said that a U.N. team had uncovered evidence of killings at a refugee camp on the eve of another round of cease-fire talks between rebels and the government.

Dallaire said U.N. investigators who inspected the Kabgayi religious compound, 22 miles southwest of Kigali, reported that “a few” people had been killed and many injured.

They could not confirm local reports that 500 civilians were massacred at the camp, or Vatican reports that up to 30,000 have been threatened with death, but it was unclear how much freedom they had to investigate. Pope John Paul II has asked the United Nations to protect the site.

U.N. workers resumed delivery of food to thousands of stranded civilians in the embattled capital, Kigali, on Wednesday, only to cut it off again as mortar and artillery rounds slammed into wide swaths of the city.