HUNDREDS of thousands of refugees were returning yesterday after a 2 1/2-year exile in Tanzania, their will to remain broken by a few well-aimed blows from Tanzanian soldiers.
"There over 300,000 people crossing and more are on the way," said an official of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees at the border post.
The UN said about 1,900 people an hour were passing through the main border post yesterday. Witnesses at the Rusomo border crossing said there was a solid mass of refugees - men, women and children, many carrying bundles on their heads - filling the road to Rusomo for at least 14 km.
Refugees said Tanzanian soldiers entered the sprawling Benaco camp, 17 km from the frontier, and ordered everyone to leave.
The exodus from Benaco means Tanzanian authorities have broken the back of the most defiant group of refugees in the country.
In November, the Tanzanian government said all refugees should leave their camps and return home by December 5th, but over 160,00 refugees instead packed up their belongings and headed deeper south into the country.
Tanzanian soldiers finally turned back the Benaco residents after they had gone nearly 100 km and they filed back into their camp on Friday.
Their numbers were swollen by tens of thousands of other refugees from nearby Lumasi, Keza and Kitali camps who had originally fled south but also turned around.
Yesterday, as hundreds of Tanzanian soldiers formed a huge cordon around Benaco, heavily armed soldiers - all also wielding sticks - entered the camp and suddenly the gates burst open and people began streaming out.
Within minutes the road to the border was thick with refugees carrying their now-familiar bundles. Some drove out in rickety cars they had plundered during their original exodus and some drove cattle and goats in front of them.
Soldiers lined the route, but appeared calm and relaxed, chatting with refugees as they passed.
As they crossed the narrow bridge over the Akegera river in Rwanda, they were greeted by President Pasteur Bizimungu of Rwanda, who told the weary refugees they would be safe.
"You are back, you are back...now help us build Rwanda" Mr Bizimungu said. "You don't have far to go now. There are trucks waiting for you soon."
Last month, more than 600,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees returned home from Zaire in an exodus sparked by fighting between Zairean troops and ethnic Tutsi Banyamulenge rebels. Zaire says it wants the other Rwandan refugees sfill on its soil to return home as well.
Chris McGreal reports from Johannesburg:
African leaders meet in Nairobi today in an effort to prevent the war in eastern Zaire from spreading across the Great Lakes region.
President Nelson Mandela is adding his considerable moral authority by joining a summit on the crisis for the first time. But several key players are not expected to attend. The government of Zaire is likely to boycott the negotiations, while Zairean rebels and Burundi's military regime have not been invited.
President Bizimungu is expected to join eight other African leaders and senior officials of the Organisation of African Unity at today's summit in Nairobi.
On Saturday, the UN finally abandoned its plans to deploy a Canadian-led multinational force in eastern Zaire. The scheme was crippled by procrastination and uncertainty about what it could hope to achieve in the face of opposition from both rebels and Rwanda.
Goal and other aid agencies were allowed distribute water and high-energy biscuits to the refugees for the first time yesterday, Paul Cullen reports. The Tanzanian authorities had previously prevented assistance being given while the refugees were still moving away from the border.