130 asylum seekers evacuated from Libya to Rwanda: UNHCR

United Nations, Dec 31 : The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has announced the evacuation of 130 asylum seekers from Libya to Rwanda.
“The UNHCR has successfully evacuated a group of 130 vulnerable asylum seekers out of Libya to safety in Rwanda in the fourth and last evacuation flight in 2020. Next flights will resume in 2021,” Xinhua news agency quoted the UN agency as sayng in a statement on Wednesday.
The evacuated group includes men, women, and children from Eritrea, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia, the statement said, adding that most of them were living in urban areas in the capital Tripoli, and many had previously been held in detention centre across the country.
Jean-Paul Cavalieri, UNHCR Chief of Mission in Libya, stressed the importance of the evacuations through the Evacuation Transit Mechanism (ETM) as a crucial lifeline for vulnerable refugees in Libya, urging the international community to make more efforts to provide greater support to these populations.
“For refugees in Libya, the Covid-19 pandemic has not only imposed restrictions that resulted in loss of livelihoods, food insecurity and lack of access to healthcare, but it also impacted access to legal pathways and solutions out of Libya, increasing despair among the most vulnerable.
“We urge receiving countries to provide further resettlement opportunities in order to help us move vulnerable asylum seekers out of harm’s way in Libya,” Cavalieri said.