Tens of thousands of people streamed across the border into Goma, Zaire, early Thursday, carrying blankets, suitcases, mattresses, and herding goats and cattle. The flood of refugees caught aid workers by surprise and raised worries of conflict with local residents.
"We heard shots during the night," said one man. "We got scared and decided to come."
"They're coming, don't you know," said another man, referring to the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front. None of the refugees wanted to give their names.
The Tutsi-led rebels have taken control of two-thirds of Rwanda, including the capital, Kigali, in fighting that broke out after President Juvenal Habyarimana died in a suspicious plane crash April 6.
His death ignited three months of ethnic slaughter. Government-trained militias of the Hutu majority are blamed for killing at least 200,000 and perhaps as many as 500,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
The tidal wave of Hutu refugees is driven by government propaganda warning of revenge killings by the mostly Tutsi rebels, although no such massacres have been reported by independent observers.
Augustin Ngirabatware, minister of planning for the interim government, said the rebels were 25 kilometers away and advancing on Gisenyi, seat of the interim government on the border across from Goma.
Zairean officials estimated that since Wednesday evening more than 100,000 refugees had arrived in Goma, a city of 150,000, said Fernando del Mundo, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva.
Zaireans collected hundreds of machetes and knives from the refugees as they arrived in Goma. Residents lined the streets to watch the procession of refugees -- some barefoot, some well-dressed -- stream into Goma carrying the last of their possessions.
Thousands of bedraggled refugees strolled aimlessly down Goma's main streets, carrying bundles on their heads.
Some of the refugees said they had walked for weeks. Many, bone-weary, dropped into the first grassy area they could find after crossing the border.
Faustin Twagiramungu, Rwanda's new prime minister, arrived Thursday in Kigali, but it was not yet clear how much authority the rebels will give him. Twagiramungu, a Hutu chosen by the rebels to form a new government, said his first mission was to meet with rebel leaders.
The rebels, who are advancing west against remaining government troops, have promised to call a cease-fire once Twagiramungu names a Cabinet and the leaders of massacres are apprehended. Twagiramungu should be able to announce a government by Saturday, rebel chairman Alexis Kanyarengwe said Wednesday.
Kanyarengwe said indications were that high-ranking government army officers would turn over government officials implicated in the massacres.
Twagiramungu was named prime minister in a peace accord signed last August to end three years of civil war between the Hutu-dominated government and the predominantly Tutsi rebels. He was to lead a transitional government for 18 months, paving the way for multiparty elections.
But the plan was thwarted after Habyarimana was killed.
Rebels say the new government will be guided by principles of the August pact. Twagiramungu said his government would include both Hutus and Tutsis.
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