On Thursday night, the Rwandan government announced the arrival of 113 asylum seekers evacuated from Libya.
The group includes people from South Sudan, Eritrea, Sudan, Ethiopia, Côte d’Ivoire, and Somalia, according to a statement from the Rwandan Ministry of Emergency Management.
The evacuees landed at Kigali International Airport and were then transported to the Gashora transit center in eastern Rwanda, where they will stay until they can be relocated to other countries.
This evacuation is part of a 2019 agreement between Rwanda, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and the African Union, which established a mechanism for temporarily housing refugees and asylum seekers evacuated from Libya.
Since September 2019, Rwanda has sheltered over 2,355 refugees and asylum seekers from Libya, the ministry noted.
The latest group’s arrival comes after Rwanda sharply criticized the UNHCR. Rwanda accused the UNHCR of spreading falsehoods and undermining its welcoming policy after the agency warned British judges that new evidence from 2024 might suggest Rwanda is unsafe for asylum seekers. This warning came despite a British Parliament bill declaring Rwanda a safe destination.
