Norway has said it is willing to take in 600 African migrants evacuated to Rwanda from Libyan detention centres.
Last year Rwanda agreed to take in some 500 out of some 4,700 estimated number of refugees in custody in Libya, under a new transit mechanism.
Rwanda has so far taken in over 200 of these migrants and is expected to take in more this year.
The Nordic country in Norway said on Wednesday that it wants to help as part of efforts to discourage the smuggling of refugees across the Mediterranean Sea.
“Norway accepted to receive close to 500 people and Sweden took in seven last month. Others are still waiting,” Rwandan Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta told reporters in the capital, Kigali.
Norwegian Justice Minister Joeran Kallmyr has said in a statement that the number of migrants the country could take in for 2020 would be 600.
Kallmyr said that would not lead to an increase in the overall number of refugees the government previously committed to.
Norway’s four-party government coalition agreed to accept a total of 3,000 refugees from U.N. camps in 2020.
“It’s important to me to show that we don’t support cynical people smugglers, and instead bring in people who need protection in an organised manner. A transit camp like the one in Rwanda will contribute to that effort,” Kallmyr said.
Many migrants from Africa continue to seek for greener pastures outside the continent.
They have resorted to the north of Africa as a transit point with some risking their lives through the Mediterranean Sea.
Some of these migrants are also abused by traffickers and sold into slavery.
In 2017 the African Union said it had planned to evacuate about 15,000 of the migrants but no progress was made in that regard.
Source: Africafeeds.com
