One of the first actions of the AFDL after it began to capture towns along the Zairian border was the dispersal of the large Hutu refugee camps that were offering safe haven to many RDR militants, an act humanitarian and human rights organizations fiercely criticized. As each camp was destroyed, the refugees fled to the next, creating camps with massive populations. One camp at Mugungu, north of Lake Kivu, reached 500,000 inhabitants, which is completely unmanageable by humanitarian organizations. However, in fierce fighting in mid-November the Zairian government forces and RDR were either destroyed or forced out of the provinces of North and South Kivu. The Hutu refugees then split, about 800,000 fleeing back into Rwanda and several hundred thousand moving west into the Zairian jungles where many died of starvation and exposure to the elements or fell victim to attacks by various armed parties. The Rwandan Defence Forces and the AFDL carried out mass atrocities during the war, with as many as 222,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees going missing.