KIGALI -- Nearly 1,800 Hutus besieged by Tutsi troops at a southern Rwanda camp where thousands of their clanspeople were slaughtered two weeks ago have agreed to go home, the country's interior minister said Thursday.


If all the Hutus leave, it will mark a peaceful conclusion to the standoff in Kibeho camp which many had feared would end in more bloodshed.


"In principle, they have all agreed to go home. We are taking them for their word," Interior Minister Seth Sendashonga told reporters.


The Hutus clustered into a filthy compound at Kibeho after many others -- 2,000 according to the UN -- were slaughtered during an operation by Tutsi government soldiers to disperse them April 22.


The Hutus demanded free passage to Zaire, but for a long time the government, which has already cut off food and water supplies to the camp in an attempt to dislodge the Hutus, said they were criminals who should be arrested.


On Thursday, however, Sendashonga said: "Our principle is to not arrest anyone at the camp, but to take them back to their villages where local authorities will screen them."


The government has undertaken an operation to disperse 250,000 Hutus from southwestern camps where they took refuge last July for fear of revenge over the massacres of Tutsis by hardline Hutus last year. As the operation has progressed, at least 2,000 Hutus have been arrested on arrival in their home villages, the UN says. At least 18 Hutus were stoned and beaten to death by Tutsis in the southern village of Huye over the weekend, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.


Reports of such incidents had fueled the determination of the Hutus in Kibeho to stay where they are.


Officials of the UN Rwanda Emergency Office said there were 311 men, 518 women and 954 children left in the camp.


Sendashonga said his ministry was sending 10 trucks to help transport the Hutus home. UN workers said the UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda had also sent 27 trucks to Kibeho on Thursday to help with the operation.


Rwanda came under intense pressure from the international community to resolve the siege of Kibeho peacefully after the April 22 killings, when Tutsi troops opened fire on Hutu crowds, shooting some and causing others to be crushed in a stampede.


The government says some 338 Hutus were killed, but reacting to bitter international outrage and the suspension of valuable economic aid, it has established an international commission to look into the tragedy.


Countries contributing to the commission met briefly late Wednesday and adjourned until Monday.


It will be made up of officials from the United Nations, the Organization of African Unity, Belgium, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States.


Forensic, ballistic and military experts and human rights monitors from overseas will be part of the commission.


Monday's meeting will work out guidelines for the inquiry, elect a chairman, vice-chairman and secretary and agree upon the depth of the probe as well as its time frame.


At the center of the investigation will be the issue of just how many Hutu men, women and children were killed at the Kibeho refugee camp in southern Rwanda and who was responsible for firing the first shot.