Rwanda welcomes first group of African refugees from Libya
First arrival of refugees and asylum seekers from Libya
Agroupof 66Africanrefugeesand asylum-seekers arrived in Kigali late Thursday, the UN said, thefirstof what could be thousands relocatedfromLibyaunder a new programme.
Earlier this month,Rwandasigned a deal with theAfricanUnion (AU) and the United Nationsrefugeeagency UNHCR agreeing to take inAfricanrefugeesand asylum-seekers stranded inLibya.
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 millionfromfeeling overwhelmed.
"Just landed!" the United Nationsrefugeeagency wrote on its Twitter account as thefirstgroupof unaccompanied minors, single mothers and families landed in the Rwandan capital.
The youngest passenger was a two-month-old girl born to Somali parents inLibya.
A UN official told AFP Wednesday that a subsequent flight carrying 125 people was planned for "between 10-12 October".
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They will be housed in a transit centre inRwandabefore being resettled elsewhere unless they agree to return to their home countries.
In the chaos that followed the fall and killing of former dictator Moamer Kadhafi in a 2011 uprising,Libyabecame a key transit point for sub-SaharanAfricanmigrants seeking to embark on dangerous journeys to Europe.
The UN says some 42,000refugeesare currently inLibya.
Rwandan President Paul Kagamefirstoffered to take in Africans stuck inLibyaback in November 2017, the same month a CNN report showed what appeared to be a slave market there.
The issue took on new urgency in July when more than 40 people were killed in an airstrike on a migrant detention centre in the Libyan town of Tajoura.
The UN has been criticised for its handling of a transit mechanism for evacueesfromLibyaestablished in 2017 on the other side of the continent, in Niger.
The facilities there have struggled with overcrowding and the slow pace of resettlement.
But UN and Rwandan officials say they have learnedfromNiger's experience.