THE border crossings from Zaire into Rwanda are strewn with torn and discarded Rwandan identity cards. Some of those crossing do not want to be identified when they get home. The scene back at the Mugunga refugee camp, which they left on Friday, is a chilling reminder of why.
In and around broken down straw huts lie over a dozen hacked and mutilated bodies of women, children and a young baby who was shot through the head. Some have limbs missing, skulls split open and toes cut off.
They have been there for two days lying sprawled in the sun, some covered with blankets with swarms of flies buzzing around.
They were killed on Thursday night, hours before the 20 km walk to the border. They are believed to have been killed by the Hutu militias who carried out the 1994 genocide of a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Nobody knows why.
Ten were found badly injured but, alive on Friday morning and were brought to hospital by staff from aid agencies, including Trocaire. One boy with an arm missing was found alive the following day, twin infants were found unharmed.
Many of the 1994 killers have gone further into Zaire bat some might have returned over the weekend, discarding their identity cards before they crossed. But Thursday, night's killings are but a drop off horror compared to what happened in 1994.
Past the end of the line of refugees, 25 km into Zaire, the road is strewn with more identity cards and diplomas from military training courses in France, Belgium and the US. These once proud possessions have been discarded as possible indicators of guilt.
Mugunga which once housed up to 4,000 refugees, including a hardcore of the Hutu militia, Interahamwe is now almost empty. Those who stayed behind are the very sick and the very old. The UNHCR sent in a fleet of trucks yesterday afternoon to bring some of these people into Rwanda.
All weekend the Hutus came 12,000 an hour flooding through the border town of Gisenyi towards their former homes. Most say they are not worried, and that they were not involved in the killing.
Yesterday evening, however, there were unconfirmed reports that Rwandan police watching the arrivals had detained a number for suspected involvement in the 1994 genocide.
At nightfall they stopped where they were and went to sleep in the rain under the plastic sheeting which every family seems to carry with it.
Every available inch of space in Ginsenyi is packed with sleeping bodies at night. The roadsides, open spaces, pavements and surrounding fields are a sea of motionless lumps of plastic.
Most have no food and the chaotic humanitarian operation has failed to provide any significant quantity.
Children and adults approach any white person they see seeking something to eat. Those who have bananas, potatoes or maize stop at the side of the road to cook it in pots carried with them.
Walking in the midst of this sea of humanity is an extraordinary experience. On Saturday and again yesterday the road from the border was jammed from side to side by people with bundles on their heads with infants in their arms, goats on strings, their children carrying pots and buckets all in a densely packed mass.
The refugees, many barefoot and in rags, move at a steady pace. Men, women, children, babies on backs, the one legged, the wheelchair bound and the elderly move as one.
Men with megaphones shout directions urging people on and telling them there will be food when they get home and some sustenance further along the road. The crowd either bakes in the sun or gets drenched by rain.
AFP adds from Goma: Between 3,000 and 4,000 Rwandan refugees may have died in eastern Zaire's North Kivu region since the outbreak of the rebel crisis there last month, a UNHCR spokesman, Mr Ray Wilkinson, said yesterday.
The UNHCR said the refugees seemed to be extremely determined to get home as quickly as possible, some of them not even taking the time to pick up food or water at the distribution points set up by humanitarian organisations along the way.