Nobel winner Malala tours refugee camps

Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai has urged all countries to join efforts to invest in the education of refugee children to ensure a bright future for them.

The 19-year-old made the call when she visited the camp of Burundian refugees in Rwanda to encourage the girls to pursue their education despite the challenges they face.

Malala, an advocate for girls’ education was visiting the Mahama camp in Rwanda on Thursday after touring the world’s largest refugee camp earlier this week in Kenya.

‘‘So my request on behalf of these girls would be to all international donors and countries that they should make eduction their top priority and should invest in these refugee children as they are the future. If you want to see peace in all these countries who are going to conflict. For example Burundi, how can Burundi see progress and success in future if its future generation is not educated?’‘

Her advocacy tour of refugee camps in Africa was under the auspices of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

“It is a great honor for us and for the refugees to have a girl who fights for education so as to shed light on the future of refugees. In our case we hope that this visit will help to further mobilize public opinion in favor of refugees in Rwanda generally but particularly Burundian refugees, “Saber Azam, UNHCR representative in Rwanda said

The refugees in the Mahama camp in Rwanda have fled the ongoing turmoil in neighboring Burundi.

More than 2,700 Burundian children at the camp, which holds more than 48,000 refugees, are not attending school.

Rwanda’s government recently provided more land to double the space available for them.

AFP