In the refugee camps, aid workers saw at first hand how local officials and the militia established their authority and control. There were gangs with guns, grenades and machetes. Some 4,000 murders took place in Goma in the first month of the exodus. Killings, threats, extortions, rape and thuggery were common. The Hutu Power ideology was as entrenched as ever with people openly expressing the view that it was correct to kill Tutsi.

The refugees spread over a network of 60 miles of roads, probably the largest group of fugitive murderers ever assembled, all fed and shelterd by the aid agencies while Hutu Power made profits from refugee commerce, monopolising the distribution of international aid, and creating a growing trade in purloined humanitarian provisions. There was even tax collection, the money quickly diverted into arms purchases. Richard McCall, chief of staff of the US Agency for International Development, described the camps as “an unfettered corridor for arms shipment”. Goma settled down into a state within a state, a new “Hutu land” carved out in Zaire…

In November some of the aid agencies threatened to withdraw from the camps, for the people in them were no more than hostages, denied the right to return to their homes, denied equal access to aid and a guarantee of basic human rights. Some agency staff did walk out. MSF-France stated that the diversion of humanitarian aid by the same people who orchestrated the genocide, the lack of effective international action regarding impunity, and the fact that the refugees were held hostage, presented a situation which was contradictory to the principles of humanitarian assistance.