RWANDAN refugees are dying of thirst in the harsh mountains of east Zaire, UN officials said yesterday, quoting some of the first eyewitness accounts from the war ravaged region.
Refugees arriving in the Rwandan town of Gisenyi, bordering on the Zairean city of Goma, told UN officials of many deaths in the waterless, volcanic mountains north of Lake Kivu.
"They said they saw people dying all around them due to lack of water on the escarpment above Kahindo and Katale camps. One man was sucking water out of tree roots," said Mr Peter Kessler, a spokesman of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
Meanwhile, in the Zairean capital, Kinshasa, thousands of students calling for the resignation of the Prime Minister, Mr Kenga wa Dongo, took over Zaire's parliament building yesterday, bringing with them the coffins of two students killed in earlier protests.
Students in the capital, denouncing government handling of the Tutsi revolt in eastern Zaire, staged a series of protests earlier in the week.
They also denounced Tutsi led Rwanda, accused by Zaire of sending troops to fight alongside the rebels, and attacked and looted property belonging to ethnic Tutsis in the capital.
As EU ministers met in Brussels to consider the need for a "neutral force" for eastern Zaire, the Save the Children Fund sounded a cautious note. Eastern Zaire is awash with arms, as a UN report made clear this week, and disarming the men with guns would be a tall order, the charity suggested.
"Military intervention is not the answer in Zaire. It will take too long and, even if agreed, may well compound the problems in the region," Mr Mark Bowden the charity's east Africa director said in London. He added that military protection was not necessary for the aid effort.
The part of east Zaire where the refugees are dying is held by a medley of armies and militias. Many are acting out tribal and political rivalries, fuelled by land hunger, which threaten to tear Zaire apart.
The rebels who captured much of eastern Zaire in a two week lightning offensive include Tutsis, the Hutu refugees enemies. Many refugees fear that if they return to their countries of origin, Rwanda and Burundi they will be slaughtered by Tutsi led armies in reprisal for the 1994 genocide in which some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered. Only about 2,000 Rwandan refugees have returned to Rwanda in recent weeks, UN officials say.
However, more than 20,000 Zairean refugees have fled the mayhem, the UN says, and many have arrived wounded or exhausted in neighbouring countries. A spokeswoman for CARE International said the agency had reports of a 14 per cent severe malnutrition rate among refugee children under five arriving in Tanzania.
On Wednesday President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, at present convalescing in a villa in the south of France, gave his support for an international intervention force to go into eastern Zaire on a humanitarian mission.
In Goma, the biggest Zairean city under rebel control, rebels yesterday supervised the distribution of oil, salt, biscuits and maize from a UN warehouse. But alarm is rising that food supplies are running dangerously low.
The commander of the rebels said his multi ethnic force would not stop after gaining control of three Zairean towns. The aim is to overthrow President Mobutu, he said.
Mr Andre Kissasse Ngandu was also quoted as saying he was opposed to an international military force to ensure aid gets to refugees.
"Our goal is to overthrow the regime in Kinshasa and all it stands for . . . corruption, misery for the people," Mr Ngandu, military head of the rebel Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo Zaire, told the Belgian daily Libre Belgique.
Speaking from Goma Mr Ngandu said: "Now we are in control of Goma, Bukavu and Uvira and we will go to Kinshasa if need be."