Asylum seekers evacuated from Libya arrived at Kigali International Airport on Tuesday night 29 December 2020. The group composed of 130 refugees and asylum seekers is the fifth batch from the Northern African country to be temporarily hosted in Rwanda.
They will be accommodated in Gashora transit Center located in Bugesera District where other refugees and asylum seekers evacuated from Libya live. They will eventually be resettled in other countries, according to an existing arrangement.
The evacuation of refugees and asylum seekers out of Libya is in line with a Memorandum of Understanding signed on September 10, 2019 between the Government of Rwanda, UNHCR; the UN Refugee Agency, and the African Union to set up an emergency transit mechanism (ETM).
Rwanda’s Ministry of Emergency Management said that, after reception all evacuees were first hosted at a designated transit hotel in regards to COVID-19 preventive measures.
The group is composed of 67 Eritreans, 48 Sudanese, 12 Somali, 2 Nigerian and 1 Ethiopian. 75% are males and 25% females while 27 of them are Children.
Rwanda has been receiving refugees and asylum seekers since 2019 who are evacuated from Libya, after being stranded there. 515 refugees and asylum seekers have so far been evacuated to Rwanda and of these, over 200 got resettled in other countries – mainly in Europe.
According to the Ministry of Emergency Management, 131 were resettled in Sweden, 23 in Canada, 46 in Norway, and five in France.
