Rwanda: Where refugees, asylum seekers are being dumped by EU

Denmark and Rwanda signed on September 9 an agreement, per which illegal migrants and asylum seekers will be relocated to Rwanda from Denmark, the second European country to send migrants to this Central African country, which is famous for the 1994 genocide that killed more than 800,000 people within only three months.

As per the Denmark-Rwanda deal, Copenhagen may transfer asylum seekers to Rwanda, where those migrants could be settled, announced the foreign ministries of both countries in a joint statement on Friday.

“Rwanda and Denmark are jointly exploring the establishment of a program through which spontaneous asylum seekers arriving in Denmark may be transferred to Rwanda for consideration of their asylum applications and protection, and the option of settling in Rwanda,” the statement read, noting that both countries are working on making the agreement enter into force as “a formal agreement.”

Denmark, which received 2,700 asylum seekers - mainly from Ukraine and Afghanistan - until May 2022, according to data from Danish organization Refugees, justified resorting to Rwanda to be a crucible for its illegal migrants and asylum seekers, saying that “the current global asylum and migration system is dysfunctional and a new approach is required.”

During meetings between the Danish Minister for Development Cooperation and Rwanda’s Minister for Immigration and Integration April 26-28, 2021, both countries signed two memoranda of understanding on asylum and migration issues and on political consultations, according to a statement issued by the Rwanda’s Foreign Ministry. In June of the same year, the Danish parliament passed an amendment to the Aliens Act to allow transferring migrants and asylum seekers to a third country outside the EU.

Rwanda, as per this agreement, would financially be benefitted in the fields of “climate and environment and good governance” to implement Rwanda’s policies regarding refugees from overseas, as also happened with the United Kingdom in April 2022.

Commenting on the joint agreement between both countries, the former head of Policy Development and Evaluation at the UNHCR, Jeff Crisp, described it as “refugee dumping”.

Franck Düvell, a social scientist and professor at the University of Osnabrück, told Germany's Deutschlandfunk radio that the agreement violates the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), as asylum seekers have the right to “knock on the border in any way, even without permission, and enter to apply for asylum here.”

UK’s criticized plan

Although Rwanda hosts refugees who are trapped in detention centers in war-torn Libya, as per a MoU between Rwanda and the African Union (AU), the eastern African country has drawn the eyes of European countries as a tool to get rid of the problem of illegal migrants bound for Europe, which turned a blind eye to Rwanda’s human rights record.

In April 2022, former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government struck a five-year deal with Rwanda to send asylum seekers and illegal migrants to the latter. The agreement provides that this arrangement is not “binding in international law.”

“The objective of this Arrangement is to create a mechanism for the relocation of asylum seekers whose claims are not being considered by the United Kingdom, to Rwanda, which will process their claims and settle or remove (as appropriate) individuals after their claim is decided, in accordance with Rwanda domestic law, the Refugee Convention, current international standards, including in accordance with international human rights law and including the assurances given under this Arrangement,” the agreement stipulates.

Two months after striking the deal, it was announced that more than 30 asylum seekers would be deported on a flight to Kigali on June 14, but the number was then reduced to seven people, including an Iraqi national who entered the UK through the British Channel on a boat from Turkey in May 2022, before the time of the flight departure. However, things don’t always go as planned by the British government, as the European Court of Human Rights issued a last-minute decision suspending the UK measure upon a request submitted to the European Court by the Iraqi national on June 13.

Last week, human rights activists who defend refugees and asylum seekers filed a challenge before the UK High Court against deporting some refugees to Rwanda. The Public and Commercial Service Union, along with a number of asylum seekers facing removal to Rwanda, brought their challenges to the court to stop the UK’s policy regarding refugees, especially after newly-appointed Prime Minister Liz Truss promised to support and expand the same policy.

On September 5, the first hearing was held, and the refugees and asylum seekers’ defenders argued that “asylum seekers removed to Rwanda face a significant risk of violation of their rights to be free from torture and inhuman treatment,” as quoted by the Guardian.

The number of asylum seekers that the UK government received from January to June this year reached 63,089 applicants, BBC reported. Former Prime Minister Johnson said on April 14, in his speech on the UK’s plans to tackle illegal migration, that “anyone entering the UK illegally – as well as those who have arrived illegally since January 1 – may now be relocated to Rwanda.”

Also, Rwanda has announced that it can receive 1,000 asylum seekers over five years but could have a capacity for more, BBC reported.

The Guardian reported that the UK would give Rwanda £120 million as initial cost, and the money would be increased by an additional £20,000 to £30,000 for each asylum seeker for transferring costs and accommodation for the first three months as per this deal, which was previously criticized by then-Prince Charles, now King Charles III.

Rwanda’s human rights

Recently, the Rwandan government refused permission submitted by British investigative reporter Iain Overton, Executive Director of Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), to report “plainly and openly in the country about its treatment of refugees” for the Byline Times.

“The failure of the Rwandan Government to permit me the fair and open reporting of its human rights record could be the thin end of a wedge,” he wrote in an article published by the Byline Times in August 2022.  The investigative reporter added that the Rwandan police killed, in February 2018, a group of refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo outside the headquarters of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

In the period between April and July 1994, more than 800,000 people, most of them of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, were killed.

The US Department of State’s 2021 report on human rights in Rwanda showed that the government is practicing “unlawful or arbitrary killings, […] forced disappearance […], torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions.”

Siobhán Mullally, the UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, said that “forcibly” transferring asylum seekers to Rwanda means “serious risks of breaching the international law principle of non-refoulement.”

“Transferring asylum seekers to third countries does nothing to prevent or combat human trafficking, in fact it is likely to push desperate people into riskier and more dangerous situations […] Rather than reducing trafficking in persons, it is likely to increase risks of exploitation,” she said.