On 4 May 1997, Rwandan rebels of RPA caused the deaths of over 100 Hutu refugees by forcing them to travel in an inhumanely packed train in conditions likely to cause considerable loss of human life. The soldiers had crammed the refugees into wagons without observing minimum safety guidelines for passenger survival.
With over 2,000 refugees standing on an overcrowded train travelling from Biaro to Kisangani, the weak, children and hundreds of desperately ill adults were forced to the bottom of the carriages and crushed. When the train arrived in Kisangani, aid workers were horrified to find out that under thousands of upright refugee travellers laid the bodies of hundreds who died during the two-hour journey from Biaro camp 41 km away.
“I think this is one of the most horrifying events I have ever seen in all my years as an aid worker,” Mr Kilian Kleinschmidt, head of the Kisangani office of the UNHCR.
With 2,000 leaving on an overcrowded train travelling from Biaro to Kisangani. On arrival in Kisangani, it emerges that 100 people have died during the journey. A woman with her baby grieves over a family member who died. DRC, May 1997.