African Refugees Arrive in Rwanda Following Evacuation from Libyan Migrant Centers

The Libyan coast guard intercepted a boat of African refugees in the Mediterranean Sea similar to this one.

Asylum-seekers evacuated from Libya began arriving in Rwanda on October 25 due to a UN decision declaring the migrant centers in Libya to be unfit. A week earlier, African refugees protested against the UNHCR’s rejection of the evacuation requests of those who were held in Libya.

The UNHCR placed more than 900 people in a transit center in Tripoli, the Libyan capital. Violent shelling and air attacks have resurged throughout Libya as opposition groups fight over Tripoli, resulting in over 1,000 deaths and displacing over 24,000 people since April. 

In addition to the violence, while some refugees have settled in urban centers and found jobs, “some people don’t feel safe in many urban centers in Libya. So some of them prefer to be detained, even if conditions are not good in those detention centers. Others try to bribe their way to get inside the detention center in the hope that UNHCR will resettle them,” according to Vincent Cochetel, UNHCR special envoy for the central Mediterranean situation. “Some nationalities outside detention centers are targeted by human traffickers, are kidnapped, and then you have extortion, you have torture,” Chochetel said.

However, refugees who stayed in detention centers have cited instances of mass sexual abuse, unlawful killings, torture, and extortion. The refugees hail mostly from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, and Somalia, many of whom were rescued by the Libyan coast guard as they tried to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. Since Muammar Gadafi’s fall in 2011, Libya has been the route for many African refugees hoping to cross the Mediterranean, but numbers have greatly decreased since the 2017 EU decision to block crossings. 

Despite the UN declaration that Libya is no longer fit to house migrants, very few countries have agreed to accept refugees from Libya, according to the UNHCR. Rwanda and Niger are among the few that have offered temporary sanctuary, while Canada, Norway, and Italy have offered only 6,000 spots for resettlement.  

The relocated refugees in Rwanda have shared the horror stories they experienced while at the Libyan detention centers, saying they are grateful for Rwanda’s help but ultimately would still like to move on to Europe.