Zambia to act on ex-Rwandan refugees' fate

The Zambian government said it will soon make a decision on the fate of former Rwandan refugees who are seeking local integration but have not met the required conditions, state media reported on Wednesday.

The Zambian government had made public its intention to declare the former refugees illegal immigrants if they failed to apply for local integration and set February 5, 2016 as the deadline.

Minister of Home Affairs Davies Mwila said only 19 out of 3,717 former Rwandan refugees had managed to acquire their passports from their country of origin and were eligible for local integration, leaving the rest at risk of being declared illegal immigrants.

"We have 3,717 former Rwandese refugees and since there is peace in Rwanda, we have said in order for those to qualify for integration, they have to get passports from the origin country but so far, only 19 have managed to get," he is quoted as saying by the Times of Zambia.

The Zambian government, he said, was still studying the matter in consultation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) before it could come up with a decision.

The Rwandese refugees around the world lost their refugee status on June 30, 2013 under a cessation clause applying to Rwandans who fled their country before Dec. 31, 1998. The Zambian government had pledged support to integrate about 4,000 former Rwandan refugees in the country. Endit