All available accounts indicate that the small Australian team found the event deeply distressing, and were frustrated both by being unable to encourage many of the IDP to return home before the massacre and being helpless to prevent it once it was underway. However, some commentaries claim that the Australian actions helped reduce the numbers killed and wounded. Writing in the Australian Army Journal, Paul Jordan, has said that: "While there was little that we could have done to stop the killings, I believe that, if Australians had not been there as witnesses to the massacre, the RPA would have killed every single person in the camp."