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UNHCR Airlifts African Refugees from Libya
First group of African migrants evacuated from unstable Libya to Rwanda
According to the UNHCR Spokesperson Babar Baloch who was speaking at a press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, a group of 66 refugees was evacuated from Libya to Rwanda on Monday, 23 September 2019 on a UNHCR-chartered flight. The group landed at the Kigali international airport at around 9:30 pm local time and comprised mostly Sudanese, Somali and Eritrean nationals.
Twenty-six of them were unaccompanied refugee children without family member or parent and among them were a two- month-old baby born in Libyan detention and an evacuee who had not been outside a detention centre for more than four years. They were processed and documented upon arrival and later taken to a transit centre in Gashora, about 60 kilometres south of the capital,
Kigali and were provide with accommodation, food, water, blankets, mosquito nets and other core relief items by the refugee agency, UNHCR.
To further help them settle down, the spokesperson revealed “a team of nine
health professionals, including a psychologist, will work alongside counsellors specialized in working with children and survivors of sexual violence to provide health care and assist evacuees who survived torture, sexual violence and human rights abuses during their time in Libya”. The move follows the fulfilment of a pledge made by President Paul Kagame of Rwanda in 2017 to come to the aid of Africans in Libya after reports of torture, sexual violence and forced labour emerged. The Rwandan government also revealed that preparations were in place to accommodate as much as hhhhhhhh 30,000 evacuees from hhhhhhh Libya All the evacuees hhhhhhhhhh were granted asylum- hhhhhhhhhh seeker status while hhhhhhhh assessing their refugee hhhhhhhhh claims by UNHCR. They hhhhhhhh have also been.
The government of Rwanda, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and the African Union recently had an agreement for the Emergency Transit Mechanism (ETM) for refugees living in Libya. UNHCR estimates that US$10 million will be spent on initial investments and to run the Emergency Transit Mechanism between Libya and Rwanda through the end of the year. This includes initial costs of construction and renovation works, and basic aid and services for evacuated refugees.
by Pa Modou Faal