Refugees Fear Deportation to Rwanda after Arriving in Britain

Refugees and asylum seekers have criticized the British government’s plans to deport unauthorized asylum seekers to Rwanda, with the introduction of Britain’s new immigration system.
A 42-year-old Rwandan journalist told The Guardian that despite being granted asylum in Britain, he was still afraid of being targeted by agents of the Rwandan government in Britain.
A man who lost several members of his family in the country’s 1994 genocide decided to become a journalist after dropping out of school in the country’s capital, Kigali, over fears of government corruption.

He worked for a newspaper that was critical of President Kagame and his government, which was later closed down, accused of being an “enemy of the state”, captured trying to flee across the border, and tortured blindfolded for four months.
His torturers, who gave him electric shocks, tried to get him to reveal the names of his press sources working for the government, but he refused. He eventually managed to escape to Britain, and after a long legal battle he was granted refugee status, with the Home Office accepting his version of what happened to him.
The government’s plans to send unauthorized asylum seekers on a one-way ticket to Rwanda were strongly condemned as inhumane and unworkable.
Arrivals in small boats on the Kent coast have expressed fears of being deported to Rwanda, with the government stating that asylum applications will be processed abroad.
An asylum seeker from Eritrea, Jamal, told the newspaper, “I will die there. Do you know how many thousands of miles I traveled to be here? How long have you been in the desert? To get to this point, to be here, we all had to make so many sacrifices, I can’t go back to Africa.”

Another man from Eritrea said, “Nobody knows Africa as well as Africans, there is no freedom there. Rwanda is like Eritrea, it does not keep people safe. Here in Europe, you are free”.

The British government had approved a new law to deport asylum seekers who arrived in the Kingdom since the beginning of this year to the African country of Rwanda, under the application of the new British immigration law.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said tens of thousands of migrants will be flown more than 4,000 miles to Rwanda under a new set of new immigration policies.
British law coincided with Rwanda’s announcement that it had signed an agreement worth millions of dollars with Britain to receive asylum seekers and migrants to the United Kingdom on Rwandan territory.
Britain is not the first
In early 2021, Denmark signed two cooperation agreements regarding immigration and asylum with Rwanda, the details of which were not announced, amid fears that they were part of the Danish government’s planning to establish a reception center for asylum seekers in a third country.
A report published by the Danish political website “Altinget”, on April 28, 2021, referred to an official visit by the Minister of Immigration and Integration, Matthias Tesfaye, and the Minister of Development, Fleming Möller Mortensen, to Rwanda to strengthen relations between the two countries and closer cooperation on migration issues.
And the Danish Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Immigration and Integration Affairs clarified in an email, a copy of which was reached on the site, that Denmark and Rwanda signed two agreements “to strengthen cooperation in the field of migration and asylum, and to increase political consultations on development cooperation.”
The two ministries did not publish the texts of the two agreements or any other details related to them.

Article written by:

Samir El Doumi