The United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, welcomes the Rwandan government’s vaccination of 416 refugees as one of the first countries in Africa to do so.
Since the first recorded covid-19 case in the country and as part of Rwanda’s national vaccination campaign, the Rwandan Ministry of Health has vaccinated 224 refugees residing at the Emergency Transit Mechanism (ETM) center in Gashora and 192 refugees in six refugee settlements working on the front lines of the pandemic as community health workers, cleaning agents, and security guards at health clinics in refugee settlements.
Some 230,000 people in Rwanda have been vaccinated against COVID-19, a week after a nationwide campaign began.
“We commend Rwanda’s inclusion of refugees in its response to the pandemic,” said Clementine Nkweta-Salami, Director of UNHCR’s Regional Office for the East, Horn of Africa and Great Lakes. “We call on all countries to include refugees in their vaccination programs on an equal footing with nationals to ensure that everyone is safe.”
There are nearly 138,000 refugees staying in the country, mainly from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi.
The first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine is being given to high-risk groups such as health care workers, teachers, elderly people with chronic health problems, people over 65, and other frontline workers. Refugees who meet these criteria are included in the first phase of Rwanda’s vaccination campaign.
UNHCR reiterates that refugees, internally displaced and stateless persons and their local host communities must be included on an equal footing with citizens in all national responses to the pandemic, including access to public health, vaccines and social safety nets.
The ETM center was agreed upon and established in mid-2019 by the Government of Rwanda, UNHCR and the African Union to evacuate refugees and asylum seekers trapped in Libya, providing them with a lifeline and a safe and organized path to long-term solutions.
Currently, 303 refugees and asylum seekers are housed at ETM. Many have been victims of human traffickers along the routes leading to Libya. The number of places available through ETM and other humanitarian evacuation flights is still insufficient. UNHCR is advocating for more resettlement countries to offer places and speed up the processing of refugees at ETM.
