Interior Minister Pretty Patel visited the Rwandan capital, Kigali, on Thursday to sign what the two countries have called an “economic development partnership”. The plan is to see some people arriving in Britain as smugglers in trucks or small boats along the English Channel being picked up by the UK government and flown 4,000 miles (6,400 km) to Rwanda, apparently for good. Immigrants have long used northern France as a starting point to reach Britain, whether hiding in trucks or ferries, or – more and more since the coronavirus pandemic closed other routes in 2020 – in boats and other small boats that organized by smugglers. More than 28,000 people entered the UK in small boats last year, up from 8,500 in 2020. Dozens lost their lives, including 27 people, in November when a single boat capsized. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said action was needed to stop “the miserable smugglers (who) abuse the vulnerable and turn the Channel into a waterfront.” In a speech near the English Channel, Johnson said that “anyone entering the UK illegally τώρα can now relocate to Rwanda”. The Rwandan government said the deal would initially run for five years and Britain had paid 120 120m ($ 158m) in advance to pay for the housing and resettlement of migrants. Rwandan Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta said the agreement “is about ensuring that people are protected, respected and have the power to promote their own ambitions and settle permanently in Rwanda if they so wish.” He said his country was already hosting more than 130,000 refugees from countries such as Burundi, Congo, Libya and Pakistan. Johnson denied the plan was “devoid of compassion,” but acknowledged that it would inevitably face legal challenges and would not take effect immediately. Rwanda is the most populous nation in Africa, and competition for land and resources there has fueled decades of ethnic and political tensions that culminated in the 1994 genocide in which more than 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus were killed trying to protect them. Human rights groups have repeatedly criticized the current government of President Paul Kagame for being repressive. Johnson, however, insisted that Rwanda had been “completely transformed” over the past two decades. Britain says relocation decisions will not be based on the country of origin of the migrants but on whether they used “illegal or dangerous routes” to get to the UK from a safe country like France. Not all of these arrivals will be considered suitable for a mission to Rwanda. it was not clear what the criteria would be for making decisions. The previous policies of sending asylum seekers abroad have been highly controversial. In 2013, Australia began sending asylum seekers trying to reach the country by boat to Papua New Guinea and the tiny Nauru Atoll, promising that no one could settle in Australia. The policy ended the sea smuggling route from Southeast Asia, but was widely criticized as a harsh abolition of Australia’s international obligations. Israel sent several thousand people to Rwanda and Uganda as part of a controversial and secretive “voluntary” plan between 2014 and 2017. Few are believed to have stayed there, with many trying to reach Europe. Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International’s director of refugees in the United Kingdom, said the “shockingly ill-conceived idea of the British government would go a long way in causing inconvenience, wasting huge amounts of public money”. The head of the UK-based Refugee Council, Enver Solomon, described it as “dangerous, cruel and inhumane”. Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire told the AP that her government’s decision to accept immigrants was questionable, as the country is also a source of refugees. “Rwanda consistently ranks (as) one of the safest nations in the world, but at the same time consistently a country where its people are unhappy,” he said. The British and French governments have worked for years to stop inter-channel travel without much success, often blaming each other for the failure. The British Conservative government has tabled proposals that are not all workable, including building a wave machine in the English Channel to steer boats back. Johnson said Thursday that the Royal Navy would respond to small boat crossings, but that the idea of pushing ships to France had been dismissed as too dangerous. Several sites previously proposed to send migrants to the UK – including the remote island of Analipsi, Albania and Gibraltar – have been rejected, sometimes outraged, by those nations. Rwanda’s plan faces obstacles in both the British Parliament and the courts. Johnson’s Conservative government introduced a tough new immigration bill that would make it more difficult for people entering the country through unauthorized routes to seek asylum and allow asylum seekers to be checked abroad. It has not yet been approved by Parliament, with the House of Lords seeking to weaken some of its most draconian provisions. Opposition politicians have accused the government of trying to divert attention from a scandal involving government parties that violated the pandemic lockdown rules. Johnson is resisting calls to resign after being fined by police for partying. Labor MP Lucy Powell said Rwanda’s plan could please some Conservative supporters and make headlines, but it was “impossible, costly and immoral.” “I think it is less about dealing with small boats and more about dealing with the sinking of the prime minister himself,” Powell told the BBC.
Ignatius Ssuuna in Kigali, Rwanda and Andy Meldrum in Johannesburg, South Africa, contributed to this story.
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