Deaths Reported as Refugees Forced From Rwandan Camps

The roads of southwest Rwanda were jammed with refugees Thursday as government troops forced hundreds of thousands of people to abandon the camps that sheltered them during last year’s war.

Margherita Amodeo, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Children’s Fund, said an undetermined number have died in the chaotic exodus that began Tuesday.

“The situation is pretty bad. People are not getting enough food and water,” Amodeo said by telephone from the Rwandan capital, Kigali.

Rwandan soldiers closed the largest camp at Kibeho late Tuesday and began closing several others on Wednesday.

In all, about 250,000 people were being forced to return home, Amodeo said.

Most refugees are Hutus, who fear reprisals from ethnic Tutsis for the massacre of up to 1 million people that began a year ago. Most of the victims were Tutsis.

Ismael Diallo, a U.N. spokesman, said the United Nations has provided 28 trucks to drive people home and is sending 100 more vehicles to the camps today.

Still, many refugees set off on foot, since most lived in towns and villages in the region.

Others lingered at the camps waiting for handouts of food and water. Supplies were delayed because all roads into the camps were packed with refugees moving out.

Dan Toole, the UNICEF representative in Rwanda, said he feared many refugees will die over the coming days from poor sanitation and lack of medical care, food and water.

The refugees fled in July when the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front swept south in the final stages of its victory over the former Hutu government.

French troops set up a protection zone for the refugees in the southwest but withdrew from Rwanda in August.

Since then, the new Tutsi-dominated government has been trying to return refugees to their homes.

But Tuesday’s eviction from Kibeho came suddenly, with soldiers firing bullets in the air. Ten people were trampled to death in the ensuing panic.