THOUSANDS of Rwandan Hutu refugees, many with appalling injuries, streamed back to camps in north-eastern Zaire yesterday while 1,500 were airlifted back to Rwanda.
Aid workers at Biaro camp, 41 km south of Kisangani, said they could not keep up with the flood of refugees returning to the camps they fled in terror last week. They said at least a dozen people had died in Biaro camp overnight either from illness or from injuries.
Aid agencies also have been nearly overwhelmed by the unexpected arrival of rebel-organised trainloads of refugees.
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said 1,512 Rwandan refugees were flown out of Kisangani to Rwanda's capital and the south-west town of Cyangugu, bringing the total repatriated since last Sunday to 1,802.
A rebel-organised train with more than 1,200 refugees pulled into Kisangani on Wednesday night and aid workers scrambled to cram them into a transit camp near the city's largest airport.
Many field hospitals and food stocks at Biaro were destroyed when villagers and Zairean rebels attacked the camps last week, prompting up to 100,000 refugees south of Kisangani to flee. Officials say around 10,000 have since returned to their sites and journalists who drove 5 km south of Niaro saw an uninterrupted line of refugees heading back.
Many could barely walk. Emaciated children lay beside railway tracks to the camp. One man walked on while holding a machete embedded in his skull.
"We need more co-ordination," said a UXHCR spokesman, Mr Paul Stromberg. "But of course given a choice of late-night surprises and no repatriation we can find common ground with the (rebel) alliance."
Asked whether rebels were trying to drown aid agencies in refugees in revenge for being internationally condemned last week for blocking access to them, he said it was hard to say.
"There is a sense that so much attention was paid to the obstacles we encountered that they are now eager to show how many people they can bring up to Kisangani," Mr Stromberg said.
But Rwanda's government yesterday accused the United Nations of delaying the repatriation of the refugees and said it was ready to work directly with the AFDL rebels to bring them back.
The government statement was in direct conflict with UN, European Union and US expressions of concern this week about the treatment of the Hutu refugees by the Tutsi-dominated rebels and complaints about a lack of co-operation with aid agencies.
The Hutu refugees fled Rwanda in 1994 and are collectively accused by minority Tutsis of genocide in Rwanda the same year.
"Due to the UN's hesitation to execute the repatriation and hesitation to comply with the AFDL request to repatriate the refugees in 60 days, the government would like to seek support of all those genuinely interested in the welfare of the refugees to facilitate the evacuation," the statement said.
"The government is prepared to work in collaboration with the AFDL to undertake the repatriation," it added.
A Rwandan Hutu refugee lobby group said, however, that the repatriation of refugees from Zaire was the last stage in a "final solution" to remove any threat to Rwanda's government.
The Rally for the Return of Refugees and Democracy in Rwanda (RDR) called for an international inquiry into genocide and crimes against humanity against Rwandan Hutu refugees in Zaire.
Rebel authorities said on Sunday that UN agencies had 60 days to repatriate all the Rwandan refugees in Zaire. UN officials have said it is impossible to repatriate all 100,000 Rwandan refugees south of Kisangani and another 250,000 unaccounted for in Zaire within 60 days. But the Tutsi-dominated rebel alliance has said it would be flexible on the deadline.