London and Kigali have signed an agreement to deport illegal migrants from Great Britain to Rwanda, which thus becomes Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Guantanamo.
Will Rwanda be London's next open-air prison? The UK is overwhelmed with asylum applications from citizens of multiple nationalities. In 2021, nearly 30 people crossed the Channel, between France and England. This is a hundred times more than three years earlier. What to worry the British, who had decided to finance, to the tune of more than 000 million euros for the years 60 and 2021, France, to help the latter to equip itself in its "fight against irregular immigration" and strengthen border controls.
And while Paris and London scrambled after a default on the part of the United Kingdom, last October, the British authorities opted for another solution. More radical. The United Kingdom has just signed an agreement with Rwanda which plans to send migrants and asylum seekers who have managed to set foot on British soil to Kigali.
This Thursday, the English Minister of the Interior, Priti Patel, went to Rwanda to finalize this agreement. The aim is to deter illegal migrants as much as possible from crossing the Channel. But the agreement is cringe, especially on the side of English NGOs who speak of the "inhumanity" of its sponsor, Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Wanting to keep his post-Brexit commitments, including that of reducing the number of migrants, Johnson has discussed with several countries that can accept his proposal. Ghana would have, according to the British press, been approached, which the African country immediately denied. It will ultimately be Paul Kagame's Rwanda which will be London's partner in this new migration policy.
An agreement contrary to the Geneva Convention for refugees
Unscrupulous in terms of human rights, Rwanda accepted London's offer for a sum of around 144 million euros. While Kigali "welcomes this partnership with the United Kingdom to welcome asylum seekers and migrants, and offer them legal avenues to live", in the words of Rwandan Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta, the agreement something to shock.
Rwanda is, of course, a land of welcome. In recent years, it has welcomed several convoys of refugees, particularly from Libya, promising access to education and health to exiles. But morally, this poses a real problem in terms of the conditions of refugees in Europe. “The European Union and the United Kingdom outsource the issue of migrants to avoid having to manage them on their territories,” laments a member of an African NGO. And to encourage African countries to become Europe's subcontractors, the EU is financing the backer of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
For Amnesty International UK, this agreement with Kigali is a “scandal”, synonymous with “barbarism”. The NGO Refugee Action believes that this is an "inhuman way to treat people fleeing persecution and war". No matter, the British Parliament is currently working on a law that will allow London to create detention centers abroad, while this text would be contrary to the Geneva Convention for refugees, yet signed by the United Kingdom.