Last Camp Shut in Rwanda; 14 Returnees Killed

As the last of Rwanda’s refugee camps was emptied Sunday, it was reported that 14 people had been beaten and stoned to death when they returned home, prompting a U.N. envoy to suggest it may be time to give peacekeepers the power to protect civilians.

About 3,400 refugees were trucked back to their villages from the Ndera camp near Kigali, clearing the last official refugee center in the Central African country.

Most of those in the camps were Hutus, the ethnic majority blamed for last year’s genocide of an estimated 500,000 people. The genocide targeted the Tutsi minority, and when a Tutsi-led government later came to power, the Hutus fled to camps for protection.

The government ordered camps to begin closing two weeks ago. Since then, hundreds of former refugees have been thrown into village prisons on suspicion of participation in the genocide, and scores have died either in dangerously overcrowded cells or in revenge attacks.

On Thursday, 14 people were stoned and beaten to death in Huye, outside Butare, Fernando Del Mundo of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said Sunday.

Few details were available, and there was no explanation of why it took three days for Del Mundo’s office to learn of the deaths.

U.N. special envoy Aldo Aiello indicated a stronger U.N. role might facilitate peaceful resettlement. In a massacre at the Kibeho camp April 22 and 23, U.N. soldiers could only watch as Rwandan troops--mostly Tutsis--fired on the camp’s mainly Hutu residents, killing thousands. The peacekeepers’ mandate did not let them intervene, Aiello said.