"nobody in New York was interested". Among the first people killed in the Genocide, early on the morning of 7 April, were ten Belgian members of 2nd Commando Battalion, the Paracommando Regiment operating as part of UNAMIR and protecting then-Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana. These troops were murdered after handing over their weapons to Rwandan government troops. They were advised to do so by their battalion commander who was unclear on the legal issues with authorising them to defend themselves, even though they had already been under fire for approximately two hours. UN Peacekeepers felt mostly paralyzed by directives from New York. Neutrality was emphasised, with the risk of military retaliation - particularly after the Somalia experience - at the forefront of the minds of diplomats and UN staff alike. Some soldiers "believed that there were virtually no circumstances in which they could legitimately fire their weapons".The Guardian stated that viewing a woman "being hauled along the road by a young man with a machete", ...none of the troops moved. 'It's not our mandate,' said one, leaning against his jeep as he watched the condemned woman, the driving rain splashing at his blue United Nations badge. The 3,000 foreign troops now in Rwanda are no more than spectators to the savagery which aid workers say has seen the massacre of 15,000 people. The scale of the massacres was quickly evident to troops on the ground. "Within five days" of the downing of Habyarimana's plane, "Dallaire clearly understood that Hutu extremists were carrying out ethnic cleansing in Kigali and elsewhere" wrote Michael Barnett. Dallaire lobbied for an immediate expansion of UNAMIR to halt these killings, requesting 5,000 troops, and the clarification of the mandate to enable peacekeepers to take action to stop the killings of civilians. Yet there was no appetite in New York, or in any major capitals, for such an intervention. A key turning point came on 12 April, when the Belgian government, one of the largest troop contributors to UNAMIR announced that it was withdrawing its troops. Belgium had previously supported Dallaire's calls for reinforcements. Having initially argued for reinforcements, upon realising the fruitlessness of these requests, Belgium favoured a complete withdrawal of UNAMIR, and lobbied for this in the UN. Dallaire protested, arguing that the force should be strengthened and given a new mandate to protect the thousands of refugees it was protecting, but the UN Security Council