Rwanda Welcomes First Group Of African Refugees From Libya
Umer Jamshaid Published September 27, 2019 | 12:19 PM
A group of 66 African refugees and asylum-seekers have arrived in Kigali from Libya, the UN said, the first of what could be thousands relocated from the north African country under a new programme
Kigali, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Sep, 2019 ) :A group of 66 African refugees and asylum-seekers have arrived in Kigali from Libya, the UN said, the first of what could be thousands relocated from the north African country under a new programme.
The move follows a pledge by President Paul Kagame in 2017 to offer a "home" to Africans after reports emerged of the torture, sexual violence and forced labour they suffer in Libya.
Earlier this month, Rwanda signed a deal with the African Union (AU) and the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR agreeing to take in African refugees and asylum-seekers stranded in Libya.
The Rwandan government has said it is prepared to accommodate as many as 30,000 evacuees, although the plan is for the programme to unfold in batches of 500 to prevent the country of 12 million from feeling overwhelmed.
"Just landed!" the United Nations refugee agency wrote on its Twitter account as a first group of unaccompanied minors, single mothers and families landed in the Rwandan capital late Thursday.
The youngest passenger was a two-month old girl born to Somali parents in Libya.
A UN official told AFP Wednesday that a subsequent flight carrying 125 people was planned for "between 10-12 October".
They will be housed in a transit centre in Rwanda before being resettled elsewhere unless they agree to return to their home countries.
"UNHCR will provide persons evacuated from Libya with shelter, education, food items, basic hygiene products and health care services," Olivier Kayumba Rugina, the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Emergency Management told AFP.
"After registration and gaining refugee status they will just get refugee IDs like other refugees." The new arrivals will be resettled at the Gashora Refugee Transit Center, located in Bugesera District, approximately 60 kilometres (37 miles) from Kigali. The transit centre was established in 2015 to host Burundians, about 30,000 of whom have transited the country to flee political violence in their homeland.
In the chaos that followed the fall and killing of former dictator Moamer Kadhafi in a 2011 uprising, Libya became a key transit point for sub-Saharan African migrants seeking to embark on dangerous journeys to Europe.
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