Eight children, four mothers, one doctor and one nurse will arrive today (Thursday) from Rwanda to Israel in one of the first RwandAir direct flights from Kigali to Tel Aviv. Rwandan national carrier, Rwandair, launched this new direct line last week following an aviation agreement signed between Israel and Rwanda earlier this year. 

Save a Child’s Heart Executive Director Simon Fisher said; “This is a new direct flight between Kigali and Tel Aviv will greatly support our ability to save many more young Rwandan lives in this Israeli-Rwandan partnership”.

The eight children arriving in Israel were screened and diagnosed last year in Rwanda by a Save a Child’s Heart visiting team at the Kigali Teaching Hospital. The Save a Child’s Heart team from Israel worked together with their Rwandan partners Dr. Emmanuel Rusingiza Kamanzi and Dr. Joseph Mucumbitsi and together they examined 47 children with heart disease. 

In the next few weeks the eight children will undergo lifesaving heart treatment at Wolfson Medical Center, and following their treatment they are expected to recover at the Save a Child’s Heart children’s home alongside children from Tanzania, Zanzibar, Ethiopia, Iraq, Solomon Islands and the Palestinian Authority. 

This humanitarian effort was made possible thanks to the partnership between Save a Child’s Heart and the Rwanda Ministry of Health, the Mitrelli Group,  RwandAir, The ORAH Fund Australia and the Israeli Embassy in Rwanda.