Amb. Vrooman who ended his tour of duty has been assuming the duties for more than four years.

The farewell ceremony held at Village Urugwiro, on Monday 24th January 2022, was also attended by Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Vincent Biruta.

Peter Hendrick Vrooman had presented credentials to President Paul Kagame on 6th April 2018 replacing Erica Barks-Ruggles who had held the position since 2014.

During his tour of duty, Vrooman was particularly admired for friendly interactions with Rwandans and efforts to learn Kinyarwanda where he was heard at different times holding speeches in the language.

Ambassador Vrooman recently served as the Chargé d’Affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Prior to that he served as the spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi; Director for Iraq on the staff of the National Security Council in Washington, D.C.; and Deputy Political Counselor in Tel Aviv and at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

He also worked at the U.S. embassies in Baghdad, Beirut, and Djibouti, as well as the U.S. Liaison Office in Mogadishu, Somalia.

In Washington, he was a Watch Officer in the Department of State’s Operations Center and the Desk Officer for Algeria in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

A native of New York in 1966, Ambassador Vrooman graduated from Harvard College with a B.A. in Social Studies and earned an M.S. in National Resource Strategy from the National Defense University’s Industrial College of the Armed Forces, now known as the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy.

Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he worked as the special assistant to the President of the American University in Cairo.

Amb. Vrooman was married to Johnette Iris Stubbs with whom they begot two children.

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