by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer | Wednesday, July 27, 1994
GOMA. ZAIRE – Her tiny torso was wrapped in dirty rags. No one knew her name, where she came from or what became of her parents. She could not have been more than 6 months old.
Last week French soldiers at Goma airport handed the baby to Florence Nirere, a 15-year old Rwandan refugee whose parents were killed fleeing tribal warfare in their homeland.
Nirere had no food, but she struggled to keep the child alive by giving her water.
Yesterday, Nirere frantically shook the tot limb-by-limb as I rode with them in a truck to a refugee orphanage at Camp Carea. She checked her mouth and eyes, looking for any sign of life.
“The baby is dead,” Nirere finally announced, as she dropped the infant’s lifeless arm.
I stared at Nirere’s skirt, which was caked with dirt from a three-month trek.
The dirt was mixing with a sickening yellow fluid that oozed from the baby as its short life expired.
Nirere and the dead baby were among 24 orphans crammed into the truck yesterday as it bounced along the dirt road.
Clad in filthy rags and weakened from hunger, heartbreak and illness, the children stared listlessly. Most seemed oblivious to the shroud of death around them.
Thousands of Rwanda’s children will die anonymous deaths, nameless victims of illness and civil war.