FOR two years they were said to be afraid to set foot in Rwanda for fear they would be punished collectively for the 1994 genocide. But all weekend, as they crossed into Rwanda, they said they were not afraid and were glad to be coming back.
The Rwandan government has always stated that it wanted the refugees to come home. The guilty would face justice but the innocent were free to go back to their villages, it insisted.
But in the camps it was believed that the Interahamwe, the Hutu militiamen, were preventing the refugees from coming home. Their leaders told them they would be imprisoned or slaughtered if they went back. People who ignored these warnings and announced their intention to return were killed as an example to others. For the armed Hutus being surrounded by a civilian population attracted international humanitarian assistance and deterred attacks.
But a month ago a conflict in Zaire began which set off the chain of events that brought the refugees flooding back over the weekend. In eastern Zaire an ethnic Tutsi population, the Banyamulenge, has lived for 200 years. They had been regarded as outsiders using Zairean land and were denied citizenship rights.
A month ago the local Zairean political leader announced that the Banyamulenge must leave Zaire or be killed. In response the Banyamulenge attacked the Zairean forces and over three weeks took control of a large swathe of eastern Zaire.
The Hutu refugees in many of the camps fled the fighting. The Mugunga camp, five km west of Goma became the centre of Interahamwe and former Rwandan army resistance.
Late last week, according to refugees who arrived in Rwanda at the weekend, the Banyamulenge rebels attacked Mugunga. The armed Hutus fled further into Zaire without putting up much of a fight. They threatened the rest of them and demanded that they come with them but this time, starving and fearful of war, the Hutus went in the other direction. Many refugees are adamant that Rwandan Patriotic Front troops were among the forces who took over the camp. It was the reassurance from them that was the deciding factor, some say.
The returnees have reason to be less fearful than many believed: Most come from the Gisenyi region in north west Rwanda. It was the birthplace of former president Habayiramana, always had a large Hutu majority and benefitted greatly from political patronage. One of the two main Interahamwe training camps was here.
There were few Tutsis and therefore relatively few killings. Most of the Interahamwe members from here did their business elsewhere in Rwanda. So these Hutus may feel relatively safe from revenge.
Their return will nevertheless be watched nervously. Just three days ago there were fears that this saga would end in another African catastrophe. Instead the Rwandans themselves may have written a happy ending to at least a chapter in the country's history.
The refugees walked for two days or more without food or shelter. Hardly any even got the standard high energy biscuits normally distributed in the circumstances. Attempts to hand them out caused near riots. Despite two years to plan for their return nobody seemed to have thought about how to give out food.
Meanwhile dozens of UN jeeps are driving around the area. They cause huge delays at the already bureaucratic crossings, claiming priority over non UN agencies and bringing large numbers of staff to the head of cues to be processed. Asked on several occasions over the weekend at border crossing where they were going, UN agency staff said they were going to meetings or to do assessments of needs in certain areas.
At the border crossing staff at a medical emergency post set up by the British organisation Merlin performed wonders. Medecins Sans Frontieres, Trocaire and Merlin set up a medical post in Mugunga camp to look after the extremely sick and weak. Large numbers recovered from dehydration as a result. Babies were born, cholera cases identified.
Concern rescued dozens of children who had got lost in the huge sea of movement and will now begin tracing their families. Trocaire staff performed the grim task of picking through a dozen bodies that had been hacked to death to bring 10 survivors, some badly mutilated, to hospital.
But in the main the Africans went home by themselves needing neither a military force to protect them nor the UN to feed them.