Hutu refugees who survived massacres at OBILO “CAMP DE LA PAIX” had improvised temporary camps along the railway line linking Kisangani and Ubundu, thus forming the makeshift camps of Kasese I and II and Biaro, in the hope of gaining access to humanitarian aid, or even of being repatriated.
On 22 April 1997, straight after the Kasese massacres, Rwanda APR special units attacked Biaro camp, 41 kilometres from Kisangani.
Soldiers opened fire indiscriminately on the Biaro refugee camp occupants, killing more than 100 people, including women and children. The soldiers then went in pursuit of those who had managed to escape into the forest, killing an unknown number of them. They also requisitioned a bulldozer from a Kisangani-based logging company to dig mass graves. Witnesses saw AFDL rebels and APR units transporting wood in trucks. This wood was then used to build pyres and burn the bodies.
Amnesty International, in its report ‘DRC: Deadly Alliances in Congolese Forests, reported that
“Tens of thousands of unarmed civilians, most of them Rwandese refugees are feared dead after they were abducted or were forced into forests by the AFDL, away from the reach of humanitarian agencies. It is feared that many of the victims may have been subjected to unlawful killings or have died from starvation, exposure and curable illnesses. The most blatant of such cases was the sudden removal in late April 1997 of as many as 40,000 refugees from Kasese and Biaro camps, south of Kisangani. […]members of the AFDL prevented humanitarian organizations from having access to the camps, although thousands, including about 5,000 at Biaro, among the 80,000 or more refugees in the two camps were severely malnourished or too ill to travel. As many as 70 refugees had been dying daily in each camp.”
AI, 1997, DRC: Deadly Alliances in Congolese Forests, Index number: AFR 62/033/1997, pp 20 – 22
On 22 April 1997, while the attacks were taking place on the Biaro and Kasese camps, other AFDL/APR units stopped refugees who were trying to escape and forced them to leave in the direction of Ubundu town centre. At the 52 kilometre marker, AFDL/APR soldiers ordered refugees to stop and sit down. They then opened fire on them, killing an unknown number of people, including a large number of women and children. Their bodies were piled up by the roadside and then buried or burned.
On 28 April 1997, the non-governmental organisation MSF was granted permission to visit the Kasese I, II and Biaro camps, but all their occupants and their bodies had disappeared. According to Médecins Sans Frontières, before the attacks, these camps were sheltering at least 5,000 people in a state of extreme exhaustion.