NOBODY was expecting them.
They came from early morning with their worldly possessions wrapped in blankets on their heads, their babies on their backs, home to the country they fled in fear two years ago.
The line was first spotted west of Goma shortly after 8 a.m. walking silently towards the town and the border beyond. There were 2,000 coming, then 5,000, then 10,000, then 75,000. One hundred thousand.
By nightfall, an incredible 700,000 Hutus were on the march, from Mugunga Camp in Zaire. Hunger had overcome fear.
At the sight of a white person, men and women patted their stomachs and extended their hands. "We are hungry, we are hungry," they repeated. "Is there food on the other side?"
They had lived in the rain and the mud, under fire, many without food, for three weeks. Many had fled other camps, Katale and Kibumba, three weeks ago and lived in the forest for a fortnight sucking trees for moisture and eating whatever they could find. Some died in the forest.
Now the river of humanity stretched almost 20 kilometres from Mugunga Camp to the barrier that separated them from Rwanda.
There they queued for hours in the heat, waiting for Rwandan soldiers to search through their meagre possessions before allowing them cross to the waiting foreign aid workers.
The aid workers had waited in dread for this day, fearing that they would be faced with diseased emaciated people. Word of the scale of the movement spread on the aid agencies radio network during the morning. Several hundred raced to the scene of the momentous event, which in their hearts they had not expected at least not before terrible war and killing forced the refugees back.
What they saw was extraordinarily uplifting. There was little evidence of serious malnutrition. People looked well and said they were happy to be coming home now. In the hot sunshine on the dusty road was the constant wail of healthy babies crying. One woman carried one just a few days old on her back, still showing the wrinkles common to healthy newborns. It was like a miracle a peaceful return of healthy refugees in a region where population movement usually follows terrible bloodshed and is accompanied by epidemic scale disease.
The aid workers looked on in wonder it was really happening. Over the radios came reports of even greater numbers moving out of Zaire. There were rumours that others of the estimated million Hutu refugees had heard of the great return and were coming as well. "It might all be over," said a German aid worker.
At first nobody knew why it was happening. The armed Hutu militias in the camps had, through, propaganda and coercion, forced the refugees to stay in Mugunga as it ran out of food. All this week speculation grew that the refugees would not be fed without first a bloodbath, with many civilians. killed in an attack on the camp. But in the end the humanitarian crisis at Mugunga ended quickly.
"There was shooting and grenades and explosions yesterday," said Sylvere Habamahirwe, one of the first to reach the border yesterday morning. "I hid in the bushes. When it was over Rwandan soldiers were in the camp and they told us we could go to Rwanda, it was safe. We left this morning.
He had fled Katale camp three weeks ago and had spent most of the time since then in the forest.
He arrived in Mugunga four days ago, "but there was nothing to eat there". Interahamwe members in the camp had been selling food, but few had any money. He asked if we had food, if there was food on the other side of the border and when he would get it. The wait to cross was very long. "People here are hungry. They might die."
Nobody looked as if they were going to die. A woman on the side of the road waiting to cross with four young children smiled all the time. "I am very very happy," she said. "I am going home."
Why had she not gone home a long time ago? She shrugged and smiled and didn't answer. Not many gave clear answers to, the question. Only Martin Christopher Ajabu, who crossed at 1 p.m. with his wife and one month old baby, gave a rational explanation.
"The Interahamwe and the former Rwandan soldiers always told us to stay, that they would kill us if we tried to go back to Rwanda. When they left the camp two days ago, they told us all to come with them. They said they would come back and kill anyone who stayed because they were RPA [the official Rwanda government army] spies.
"But the RPA soldiers came to, the camp yesterday and said we could go back to Rwanda, and that we would be safe." He had wanted to come back for a long time he said.
Other refugees who left Mugunga were moving in other directions, according to the arrivals, but they believed they would hear of their return and many would also come back.
The first arrivals looked hungry but healthy. The sick, the old and children straggled in as the day went on. The agencies divided tasks between them. Concern took in a few dozen unaccompanied children, some orphans others separated from their families on the way.
The arrivals did not know what, would happen to them. Those waiting to cross seemed surprised to be told that complex arrange were in place, that they would stay a few nights in a transit camp before being transported back to their home areas.
At least that was the plan when a slow influx of a couple of thousand a day was expected. Now nobody is sure what, will happen.
The security checks and registration process yesterday were, painfully stow. By yesterday evening most were still on the Zairean side. It may take several days for them to get into Rwanda.
Back in Mugunga camp, the bodies of 26 people, recently hacked to death with machetes, were found by aid workers who got there. There were also injured people who could not join the great walk. Trocaire staff collected them and brought them to Goma hospital. Concern's Mike McDonagh, who could not get to Mugunga by car, walked 12 km to the camp, passing dead bodies, some mutilated, people who had been killed in the last few days.
On the streets of Goma there was an overwhelming sense that this was a happy, unexpected occasion. People waved at each other on the street and stopped to talk to any white people they saw. One man explained that his brother was coming home. "It's a great day for us. The war is over," he said.
In Gisenyi, as the sun was setting, a woman who had walked from Mugunga gave birth to a baby boy in the emergency medical aid post set up a few hours earlier.
He was born at home ... in Rwanda.