SEVERAL thousand Rwandan refugees crossed into Rwanda from Tanzania yesterday while hundreds of thousands flooded back towards their camps after Tanzanian troops blocked them from moving deeper into Tanzania.
While some walked into Rwanda, thousands more broke through a Tanzanian army cordon around Benaco camp. Soldiers at first beat some with sticks but gave up when it was clear they had been overrun.
Earlier, nearly half a million Rwandan and Burundian refugees trekked away from their camps near Tanzania's border with Rwanda to avoid being repatriated by the end of the month, a deadline announced by the Tanzanian government and UNHCR last week.
But confronted by roadblocks manned by Tanzanian troops, a vast tide of refugees turned back to their camps, only to find they had been sealed off by troops who at one point fired tear gas canisters to keep them on the road towards the border.
A UNHCR official, who declined to be identified, estimated some 5,000 crossed the border into Rwanda yesterday and another 300,000 Rwandan and Burundian refugees were on roads heading back towards their camps which they had fled since Sunday.
It was unclear where the returning refugees would go but it appeared Tanzanian troops might put them all in Benaco camp, which had a population of some 162,000 before the exodus.
Hundreds of refugees sprinted across vegetable fields to reach Benaco camp. Many Hutu refugees have said they tear reprisals or punishment for the 1994 genocide of Tutsis if they return to Rwanda.
Refugees who wanted to sit down were told to keep moving.
"A huge mass has just turned round, tens of thousands. They are heading north towards the border and Benaco camp. It is an absolutely incredible sight right to the horizon as far as you can see," said a spokeswoman for the World Food Programme (WFP).
Reporters estimated that more than 100,000 refugees headed back towards Rwanda after setting out on what they said would be a marathon trek to asylum in Kenya or as far south as Malawi, 850 km away.