Machine-gun and artillery fire rocked this Central African capital Wednesday as rebels and government troops fought pitched battles. After a week of fighting, the army was reported running low on ammunition.

More than 100,000 desperate refugees carrying their belongings on their backs streamed out of the city ahead of the ethnic warfare. Foreigners already have nearly completed their exodus from this small Central African country.In one of the most dramatic evacuation maneuvers, a heavily armed column of Belgian troops rescued 18 foreigners this morning from the Ndere psychiatric hospital north of the airport.

As the convoy arrived, 500 Tutsi refugees camped in one of the compound's buildings rushed out with their hands up, pleading for help.

But they were left behind, along with 200 mentally ill Rwandans living in the hospital.

The Belgians had room for only 18 foreigners - five brothers and two nuns of the Belgian Charite order, along with a mentally disturbed Italian woman, two other Belgians and their families.

The hospital and adjacent convent had been besieged since Tuesday night by Hutu gangs armed with clubs, machetes and rifles.

"It's hell," said Jef Debere, 67, one of the Charite brothers. "I came to Rwanda after retiring because I thought I could be useful. With the whites gone, the people at the hospital have no more protection. Most of them will be killed."

With as many as 20,000 mainly Tutsi troops of the rebel Rwanda Patriotic Front pouring in from the north to reinforce small groups already in the city, members of the provisional government in Rwanda left for the countryside.

Army troops, mostly Hutus, and rebel soldiers engaged in mortar duels in the center of Kigali Wednesday afternoon and fired at each other over the airport. The army appeared to be low on ammunition, said Capt. Eric Millet, a French officer.

Belgian troops rushed to get the few remaining expatriates aboard C-130s headed for Nairobi, a 1 1/2-hour flight.

Earlier, rebels and army troops fought street-to-street in the center of the city. A government helicopter gunship fired rockets at rebel positions Wednesday. At least one shell hit the parliament building, sending up a plume of smoke; others landed nearby, kicking up giant clouds of red dust.

As a result of Rwanda's unrest, U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali outlined several options to the Security Council in a written report Wednesday, including closing down peacekeeping operations for the 2,500 U.N. troops in Kigali and elsewhere, U.N. sources said.

A closed-door Security Council meeting was scheduled Wedneday afternoon.

Foreign Minister Willy Claes of Belgium told Boutros-Ghali on Tuesday that his country wants to withdraw from the U.N. peacekeeping force in Rwanda. Ten Belgian peacekeepers have been killed in Rwanda.

Claes said he "did not see the point in continuing to expose our troops to additional dangers."

About 500 army soldiers near the airport, on the eastern edge of Kigali, were in direct combat with rebels. Many of the government troops appeared terrified. A Rwandan army official said dozens of civilians were killed.

Mortar shells could be heard landing at a rate of five to 10 a minute, and the rat-tat-tat of machine-gun and automatic-weapons fire was nearly constant.

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The U.N. commander in Rwanda, Gen. Romeo Dallaire, said Tuesday night that rebels were meeting with little initial resistance and appeared to be winning control of the capital.

A Canadian priest said Wednesday the army had begun to withdraw, killing civilians and burning everything in its path. The priest, who insisted on anonymity, said at one parish soldiers rounded up 85 Tutsis and shot them.

An estimated 20,000 people have been slain in a week of savage violence - the latest in a decades-long feud between the country's two main ethnic groups. Hutus dominate the government and comprise 90 percent of Rwanda's 8.5 million people. The rebels are mainly Tutsis, who make up 9 percent of the population.

Claude Dusaidi, a spokesman for the rebels in New York, said the rebels wanted to restore order to the capital and to replace military rule with democracy.

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