Exodus

In two days in April 1994 Tanzania's second largest city appeared out of nothing.  As Rwandan refugees poured over the border, nearly half a million people set up home in the refugee camp of Benaco.  Since then, each morning, the refugees have fetched two hundred tons of firewood from the forest - and the circle of felled and devastated land has spread further and further out around the camp.

Similar environmental devastation has occurred in Somalia, Malawi, and Sudan, and the aid agencies are now being forced to look further ahead.  Over the last ten months TV6 has followed the progress of the world's first Environmental Impact Assessment of a refugee crisis, as the aid givers in Benaco try to find out if it's possible to run such a vast camp without permanent damage to the environment.

But will the aid agencies ever be able to cope with a crisis on the scale of the exodus from Rwanda, or does it need a change in the world's approach to the growing problem of refugees?