The Rwandan government has approved the evacuation of another batch of asylum seekers who are stranded in Libya as part of the commitment by the government to provide a safe passage for Africans who have been stranded in the North African country for years. The move is in line with the framework of the Emergency Transit Mechanism established through a tripartite agreement between the Government of Rwanda, UNHCR and the African Union. Set to be airlifted to Rwanda on Thursday, November 19, 2020, the refugees will be accommodated in Gashora Emergency Transit Centre in Bugesera District. The asylum seekers are brought into the country depending on the capacity of the camp, according to officials. The camp normally accommodates 500 people and Claude Twishime, the public relations officer in The Ministry of Emergency Management, confirms that the new asylum seekers are going to replace the ones who have been resettled. “We normally have a limit of 500 people in that camp, so we are evacuating another batch to replace those who have been already resettled,” he confirmed in a telephone interview. Recently, the UNHCR told The New Times that since the evacuations of these asylum seekers, 81 of them have since been resettled in different countries mainly in Europe. Twishime said that the number of people to be evacuated this week hasn’t been approved, but ranges from 80 to 100. The government of Rwanda is expected to provide protection to the refugees, asylum-seekers, and other evacuees identified as particularly vulnerable and at-risk in Libya, until the durable solution will be provided. “It is an ongoing process, we can’t say we are stopping to evacuate more people, we will do this until a durable solution is found”, added Twishime. Most of the evacuees are asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa countries. During the interview, Twishime said that that evacuation and resettlement have been hindered by the Covid-19 pandemic. Rwanda made the commitment to host the African refugees trapped in Libya after their desperate journeys to seek asylum in European countries were cut short as European nations stepped up migrant controls. Media reports and human rights groups had documented that the refugees were openly being sold in modern-day slave markets in Libya, encountered cases of rape, torture and other crimes in Libyan detention facilities. As of September 2020, Rwanda is currently home to over 140,000 refugees mainly from Burundi and DR Congo, they mostly live in six camps spread across the country while others voluntarily live in different parts of the country.
