1st wave of migrants evacuated from Libya reaches Rwanda

KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) — The first evacuation flight of African refugees and asylum-seekers from wretched Libyan detention centers arrived in Rwanda late Thursday in an unusual new effort to divert and care for people who failed to reach Europe.

The East African nation's agreement to take in 500 people who have been trapped in chaotic Libya, at risk of rocket attack and rape, has raised questions and concerns. It is not clear how long they might be held in Rwanda and how free they are to leave.

"Refugees who will wish to stay in Rwanda permanently will be given asylum," Olivier Kayumba, permanent secretary in the ministry of emergency management and refugee affairs, told The Associated Press. Rwandan officials have said the country is not being paid to take them in.

Authorities said the first group of 66 Africans, including women and children, was in a bad state of health and media access to their arrival was restricted.

The Rwanda option emerged after various European Union-funded efforts to stem the flow of migrants trying to reach Europe via sometimes deadly journeys across the Mediterranean Sea, although the volume is decreasing. The U.N. migration agency has said more than 45,500 people have arrived in Europe by sea this year, a 30% drop from 2018.

A larger evacuation center run by the U.N. in the West African nation of Niger along a major migrant route north is now dangerously overcrowded, as is the U.N.-run center for about 1,000 migrants and refugees in Libya's capital, Tripoli.

European countries have been at odds over how to handle the steady flow of economic migrants and asylum seekers, and they have faced criticism from some activist groups over the ad hoc approach and the low number of people they accept. Just a fraction of the some 2,900 people who have been evacuated to the center in Niger have found...