Tens of Thousands Fleeing Rwanda

Tens of thousands of Rwandan refugees, mainly emaciated Hutu women and children, began crossing into eastern Zaire on Wednesday as rebel Tutsis intensified their advance against the remnants of Rwanda’s government.

Aid agencies in Goma said the refugees had trekked into a game park to the north of the town Wednesday at a rate of 10,000 people an hour and many more were still coming. “It’s simply overwhelming,” an aid worker told reporters.

Representatives of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Goma said as many as 100,000 had crossed the only frontier still controlled by Rwanda’s rump government.

Journalists returning from the area estimated 150,000 refugees had crossed into impoverished Zaire, taking over fields and gardens and cutting down trees. Local Zairians were taking flight.

Local authorities said they feared as many as 500,000 refugees, fleeing a 3-month-old civil war in Rwanda, would cross into Zaire in the next few days. Most of the refugees are members of Rwanda’s majority Hutu tribe, whose government troops and militia have killed hundreds of thousands of Tutsis in a campaign of genocide.

The Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front is set to form a government. Prime Minister-designate Faustin Twagiramungu is expected to arrive today in the capital, Kigali.