Ibrahim Omer fled Eritrea as a refugee making his way to New Zealand and becoming the country's first ever African MP.

He told the BBC's Peter Okwoche that his win was historic.

"I'm very overwhelmed, very excited at the same time because this is for us as a country New Zealand and for me as a person and for the community that I represent here in New Zealand," he said.

Mr Ibrahim spent years working as an interpreter in a Sudanese camp and later the UNHCR resettled him in New Zealand.

He says his presence in parliament will be benefiting the community.

"I suppose to me the reason why I was doing it was a way of also giving back to the society, to the community, to the country that gave me so much. At the end of the day, the tax payers funded me coming to New Zealand so I needed to do, I needed to say thank you by doing something, something nice for the communities and the country," he said.