Kampala — At least 1,118 Rwandan Hutu who had been repatriated have crossed back into Uganda fleeing Rwanda's traditional court system known as Gacaca.

The Minister for Disaster Preparedness, Ms Amongin Aporu, said the government and the UN refugee agency were to meet yesterday to discuss the fate of the 240 families.

"We are going to hold a meeting with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to find a solution to these people who are in Mbarara district," Aporu said yesterday.

"They say when the Gacaca court system started in March, they feared to be arrested by Rwandan authorities," she added.

The group was part of over 2,000 of the 25,000 Rwandans, mostly Hutu who had been resettled in their home country under the Voluntary Repatriation Programme.

They fled Rwanda to Uganda after the 1994 genocide and have since lived in Orukinga and Nakivale refugee settlements in Mbarara.

The repatriation programme that started last year has had little success which the UN and the Uganda government attribute to the fear of retribution.

But Rwanda Secretary for Justice in the Justice Ministry, Mr Johnson Businge, dismissed claims of retribution.

"If you committed crimes and you run away from user friendly courts like Gacaca, then you are missing an opportunity to be forgiven and will live with your crimes for ever," Businge said.

"Gacaca is designed for reconciliation and if one is found guilty there is a whole range of negotiated punishments which these suspects cannot get anywhere," Businge said in a telephone interview from Kigali, Rwanda.

Extremist Hutu massacred about 800,000 people, minority Tutsi and moderate Hutu in April 1994 in a bloody 100-day campaign before a Tutsi-dominated Rwanda Patriotic Army rebels took over control.

Nearly one out of 10 of Rwanda's eight million people faces charges stemming from the 1994 genocide, according to official estimates.

About 10,000 have been tried before national courts.