This passage comes from a report in which british diplomat robert casement discusses his conversations with refugees who fled the congo. i visited two large villages in the interior . . wherein i found that fully half the population now consisted of refugees . . i saw and questioned several groups of these people . . they went on to declare, when asked why they had fled (their district), that they had endured such ill-treatment at the hands of the government soldiers in their own (district) that life had become intolerable; that nothing had remained for them at home but to be killed for failure to bring in a certain amount of rubber or to die from starvation or exposure in their attempts to satisfy the demands made upon them . . i subsequently found others who confirmed the truth of the statements made to me. —robert casement, 1904 according to this quote, why did people flee the congo? they fled to the government gain better control of the population. they fled to escape persecution from government soldiers. they fled to learn more about european government and culture. they fled to find a better supply of food.