Tutsis Tribe

A little boy ran down a muddy path here just after noon Monday to break the news. "They are coming!" he shouted. Soon they straggled in, 33 ethnic Hutus who had fled this remote hamlet in western Rwanda for the foul refugee camps of Zaire on July 17, 1994. Now, returning for the first time, they dropped their soiled bundles in the weeds and looked around nervously. They were finally home. But they were not welcome. Ethnic Tutsis had taken over the eight Hutu families' homes and farms.

The leader of Zaire's Tutsi rebels, who are surrounding Rwandan Hutu militants in a camp overflowing with hundreds of thousands of refugees, said Monday that his forces will attack the camp if an international force does not intervene quickly.

While Europe pressed for immediate deployment of an international force to aid refugees fleeing fighting in Zaire, Zairian officials urged Saturday that the United Nations first condemn its neighbors for their part in the conflict. Zaire accuses the Tutsi-led armies of Rwanda and Burundi of taking over three key cities in eastern Zaire--Bukavu, Goma and Uvira. Rwanda says Tutsi rebels in Zaire are responsible for the attacks, which have scattered 1.

With the international community threatening to intervene, Zairian Tutsi rebels declared a cease-fire Monday in eastern Zaire and agreed to allow aid agencies to try to get Hutu refugees home to Burundi and Rwanda. Fighting between Tutsi-led rebels and Zairian troops has forced hundreds of thousands of refugees to flee their U.N. camps, venturing deeper into Zaire and farther from the reach of aid workers.

Some of Central Africa's worst fighting since Rwanda's genocidal war two years ago erupted Friday as the Tutsi-led government army here exchanged fierce artillery fire with neighboring Zaire, sending thousands of panicked residents fleeing from both sides of the bitter combat.

Tens of thousands of frightened refugees were on the move again Thursday in eastern Zaire after heavy fighting exploded around the airport in Goma, a key logistic and strategic city that appears to be the major target of the widening Central African war. Roads and bridges north and south of the besieged city, the administrative and supply base for more than 1.

The Rwandan government launched a diplomatic and public-relations offensive Monday to refute widespread suspicions that it has actively supported insurgents fighting in neighboring Zaire, or that Rwanda's troops attacked a crowded refugee camp over the weekend.

Advancing Tutsi rebel forces captured new territory Sunday in eastern Zaire as heavy fighting sent Zairian troops and panicked civilians in chaotic retreat and increased tensions in an area suffering the worst fighting in months in strife-torn Central Africa.

The growing conflict and humanitarian crisis in eastern Zaire appeared to be spiraling out of control Saturday, threatening to engulf the volatile Great Lakes region of Central Africa in a new nightmare of ethnic bloodshed and anarchy.

Shelling rocked a city in eastern Zaire on Friday as Tutsi rebels battled Zairian troops, and a European envoy warned that a new genocide in Central Africa could be near. Western aid workers in Geneva said that Banyamulenge rebels--ethnic Tutsis who have lived in Zaire for generations--had seized the airport in Uvira and cut off all satellite and radio communications. Many people were fleeing the city on Lake Tanganyika, they said.