164 asylum seekers evacuated from Libya arrived in Rwanda

Rwanda has received 164 refugees and migrants who had been stranded in Libya, all of them nationals of various African countries, as part of an ongoing international protection effort.

According to officials, the group includes 143 nationals of Sudan, a country that has been ravaged by conflict for nearly three years; 19 from Eritrea; one from Ethiopia; and one from South Sudan.

The evacuation and reception were carried out under the Emergency Transit Mechanism (ETM), a framework established through an agreement between the Government of Rwanda, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, and the African Union (AU). The ETM provides temporary protection in Rwanda for refugees and migrants evacuated from Libya while durable solutions, including resettlement in third countries, are being arranged.

Upon arrival, the evacuees were accommodated at the Gashora Transit Centre in Bugesera District, where they begin administrative processing and status assessments before potential relocation to countries that have agreed to resettle them, including several in Europe and elsewhere.

Since the ETM was launched in 2019, Rwanda has received 2,760 refugees and migrants evacuated from Libya. Of these, more than 2,500 have already been resettled in third countries.