NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports on the US military's plans to evacuate American citizens from Zaire if that country's civil war reaches the capital, Kinshasa. About a hundred and fifty American troops are in Brazzaville, the capital of neighboring Congo, just across the Zaire river from Kinshasa. Another two thousand are on the U-S-S Nassau, an ambphibious assault ship stationed off Zaire's coast. If an order to evacuate is given, the American forces are ready to move into Kinshasa with attack helicopters to evacuate the roughly five hundred U-S citizens there.
Copyright 1997 NPR