This week, the UK will deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, after Boris Johnson and the British government in April entered into an agreement with Rwanda on just that. The agreement is garnering fierce international protests, especially since Rwanda is one of Africa’s poorest and smallest countries, and thus unable to take proper care of asylum seekers.
Now Prince Charles has also expressed his dissatisfaction with the agreement, several British media write.
– Terrible, the 73-year-old prince is said to have said about the agreement, reports The Times, Reuters, SkyNews and several other media.
No shame in turning around
– Embarrassing
Prince Charles’ statement was given in a private context, according to The Times, which has been told about the prince’s attitudes. Avisa further writes that the prince is particularly frustrated with the asylum agreement because he will represent the queen during a meeting in Rwanda’s capital Kigali later this month.
Then he will meet President Kagame, and will experience “embarrassing moments”, writes The Times.
AGREE: Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta (left) and British Home Secretary Priti Patel are talking to the press outside the UN headquarters in Geneva about the controversial asylum agreement the two countries have signed. Photo: AP / NTB
sea view
The British, led by Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Priti Patel, have been working for a long time to reach an agreement where they can send away asylum seekers they do not want.
UN: Illegal
Both the UN and a number of British organizations have condemned the asylum agreement.
– The notified deportations do not in any way have the support of the UN High Commissioner, says Laura Dubinskya lawyer from the UNHCR, and adds that the refugees will be able to experience “serious and irreparable damage” if they are sent to Rwanda.
The UN has had two meetings with the British authorities, where they emphasized that deportation of people to countries where they can experience persecution is illegal according to international law, reports BBC.
“Asylum seekers sent to Rwanda are handed over to poverty,” is the title of the article The Telegraph, who has sent a journalist to Rwanda to see what asylum seekers will encounter there. Refugees say that there is not enough food, shelter, medical help or other vital things, writes The Telegraph journalist further.
British ministers believe that asylum seekers can now “build their lives in safety”. Rwanda, for its part, has promised “long-term stays” to those deported by the British, without saying anything more about what it means.
First of many
The asylum agreement has also been considered in British law. On Friday, a British court rejected the appeal of a group of asylum seekers who are already to be put on a plane on Tuesday and sent to Rwanda.
31 people are to be deported on the first flight from the UK to Rwanda on Tuesday, according to BBC.
But Tuesday’s deportations will be the first of many, everything goes as the British want.
Interior Minister Patel has been working to get the asylum agreement in place for a short year, and has received a lot of criticism. She herself replies that the agreement is an opportunity to fight the “evil human traffickers” who help asylum seekers to come to Britain.
Get paid
Under the asylum agreement between Britain and Rwanda, the British will pay 120 million pounds, which will go to education projects, according to the BBC.
Rwanda has a population of 12.3 million and is the most densely populated country on the African mainland. So why should a small, poor African country say yes to accepting asylum seekers that the British do not want?
“Rwandan ministers believe that the arrival of motivated migrants will help them boost the economy and the agreement will be able to contribute to future investments,” he wrote. BBC editor Mark Eastonbefore concluding:
“But one wonders what the average citizen of Rwanda thinks about a rich European country sending its problems to a small African state.”
– Send them to Africa
Frp: Send them to Africa
In Norway, too, the discussion about sending refugees has been heated. Frps Erlend Wiborg also earlier this year promoted a publishing house to send refugees to Africa and Rwanda.
– I think Rwanda is a good proposal for a place. There is a reason why the UK has also chosen it. But I am willing to consider other countries as well, Wiborg said Aftenposten in May this year.
The proposal provoked violent reactions.
– The logic does not hang in the balance. The FRP, which is so concerned with helping in the neighboring areas, must understand that countries like Rwanda will not have the opportunity to help in their neighboring areas if we send our asylum seekers to them. And then the whole asylum institute falls, said Pål Nesse, general secretary of NOAS Dagbladet.
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