Refugees Back In Camps

Hundreds of thousands of Rwandan refugees trudged wearily back to their camps Friday, frightened by Tanzanian soldiers into ending their daylong flight toward the interior of the country.

“The soldiers stopped us,” said Francois Lukera, balancing a bundle of clothes on his head. “We didn’t want to come back, but they scared us.”

Aid workers said 410,000 refugees - who on Thursday suddenly fled deeper into Tanzania from camps on the Rwandan border where they had been living for two years - reversed their direction at midday Friday.

“It was just like they turned on a dime,” said Chris Sykes, team leader for CARE International in northwest Tanzania.

Tanzania wanted the refugees to continue past the camps and on to Rwanda, but the troops’ attempts to stop them from resettling in their camps were futile.