REFUGEES IN ZAIRE HAVE FEW PLACES TO TURN FOR ESCAPE FROM WARFARE.

Byline: Howard W. French The New York Times

For worn and famished refugees, the makeshift camp strung out like a splintered cross alongside this town's grassy landing field has the frightening feel of the end of the line.

After a walk of more than 300 miles, pursued by this country's Tutsi-led rebels through some of Africa's thickest jungles, terrorized and uprooted each time they set up camp, it is here that more than 100,000 desperate fellow Hutu have come to gather.

Ahead lie the crocodile-infested rapids of the Congo, which they have no means to cross. From behind, perhaps as little as 20 miles away, their pursuers are approaching, threatening a vengeful rout.

From the start of Zaire's civil war, the conflict's goals have been neatly twinned. All along, the rebels, led by Laurent Kabila, have maintained that their goal is to overthrow Zaire's longtime dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko.

But throughout, their campaign has just as surely revealed another consistent priority: breaking up the huge concentrations of Hutu who have sought refuge in Zaire since Rwanda's own civil war in 1994, and hunting down all those hiding among them who may have participated in the massacres committed against the Tutsi. Many among the fleeing Hutu have been armed by Zaire's government as a counterinsurgency force.

Never have the rebellion's two goals been closer to realization. Kabila's fighters are already believed to be surrounding the regional capital, Kisangani. And a successful rebel push through this area would decimate the haggard Hutu population - the largest remaining Hutu refugee group in Zaire - just as surely as the capture of Kisangani would deliver a crippling blow to Mobutu's government.

``We are hungry and we are sick, but above all we have lost all morale,'' said Imaculee Mukarugwiza, a widowed Hutu schoolteacher huddled here with her own two children and five orphans she took in since Zaire's rebellion set off a long westward march of Hutu refugees last October. ``After what we have been through, it is hard for many of us to recognize each other. Our elders are shriveled and dying and our children already look old.''

Questions of strategy debated on both sides of this country's war are mere abstractions for the refugees gathered in the open fields here. Their worst nightmare is a repetition of the routs they have suffered every step of the way, from the rebel bombardment of the huge Goma camp at the start of the war to the overrunning of their last settlement at Tingi Tingi.

``Are all of us guilty of genocide, even these little children?'' asked Mukarugwiza. ``We have been chased through the bush like animals. And in three days, Kabila's men will be upon us again, leaving 100,000 of us a choice of death under their bombs or in the jaws of crocodiles.''

While Mukarugwiza spoke, a sea of people in tattered clothing, many of them visibly weakened by their trek, gathered around one of the first foreigners they have laid eyes on since fleeing Tingi Tingi 11 days ago under a hail of bullets.

The campaign against the Hutu refugees has been especially unforgiving, foreign diplomats and Zairian human rights experts say, because many of Kabila's fighters pushing westward toward Kisangani are Tutsi volunteers from Rwanda bent on avenging the death of relatives at the hands of the Hutu.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Thousands of Hutu refugees stand behind a cargo plane that arrived in Zaire to assess their condition Wednesday. With a hostile army coming, they can go no farther without a perilous crossing of the Congo.

Associated Press