If you look around the encampments, you may find a storage box that might have something important in it.

They are passive mobs that turn hostile as soon as you damage/steal their stuff. Other than that you can sonsider them atmospheric/aesthetic mobs to add a bit more variaty. So in short you could kill them for resources, use them as meat shields or just leave them be. The choice in how you like to play this out is yours in the end.

But as Rengoku has kind of mentioned. They have something valuable in their possesion that you may want to aquire.