Zaire Stops Forcing Refugees To Go Home End To Evictions Draws Many Out Of Hiding And Back To Camps

Zairian troops stopped forcing refugees from Rwanda and Burundi to go back to their turbulent homelands Thursday. Reassured, thousands emerged from hiding and returned to their refugee camp homes of sticks and plastic sheeting.

It was unclear what motivated Zaire to stop the evictions or how long the suspension would last. But the halt and return of the refugees, who had bolted from the camps this week with scant food or water, eased fears of a new humanitarian crisis.

The evictions began abruptly Saturday, when Zairian soldiers entered the sprawling camps in eastern Zaire and forced residents at gunpoint to board buses or cross the borders on foot. Some refugee huts were set afire, and there were unconfirmed reports of rape and theft by the soldiers.

By Thursday, more than 13,000 people had been driven home. But some 173,000 fled into the countryside to escape the soldiers carrying out the expulsion order. Aid officials feared new outbreaks of disease and starvation like the one that killed 50,000 people when 1.2 million Rwandan refugees fled to Goma last year.

After hearing that the expulsions had stopped, aid workers went with loudspeakers into the hills to coax the refugees back.

Thousands soon began returning to the camps at Bukavu and Uvira, and started rebuilding the huts of plastic sheeting and sticks that had been destroyed or torn down, said Fernando Del Mundo, a U.N. spokesman in Geneva.

There was no formal agreement ending the evictions, but U.N. officials in Goma said they were optimistic one would be reached when the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, meets with Zairian government officials in Kinshasa next week.

Officials in Zaire have complained that the 1.8 million refugees on its soil - the largest number in any country - have disrupted normal life in border areas, caused considerable environmental damage and posed a major security risk.

Nearly 2 million Hutus fled Rwanda in July 1994 when Tutsi-led rebels seized power. Hutu-led militias had killed an estimated 500,000 people, mostly minority Tutsis, in the preceding months and the refugees feared retaliation.

Zaire apparently feared that battles between the Tutsi-led Rwandan government and Hutu extremists in the refugee camps would take place on its side of the border, especially after the United Nations lifted an arms embargo against Rwanda last week.

Zaire is also host to thousands who fled similar ethnic strife in Burundi, Rwanda’s neighbor. Burundian Hutus, long dominated by the Tutsi minority, fled to Zaire after the country’s Hutu president was killed in a failed 1993 coup.