Boris Johnson is toughening up his migration policy. Rwanda has signed an agreement with London to receive on its soil migrants and asylum seekers of various nationalities arriving from the United Kingdom. The British government hopes in this way to deter illegal crossings of the Channel. London will initially finance the device to the tune of 120 million pounds sterling (144 million euros).
For months, Boris Johnson and his government have been seeking to conclude agreements with third countries where to send migrants while waiting to process their file. Rwanda and Ghana had been mentioned, but Ghana strongly denied in January that it was in discussions with the United Kingdom on the subject.
The British Parliament is also about to adopt a law which could authorize the creation of centers abroad to deport migrants while their application is being processed or even authorize the coastguards to push migrants out of British waters. migrant boats.
According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), this law, if adopted, would contradict the Geneva Convention for Refugees signed by the United Kingdom.
On his side, “Rwanda welcomes this partnership with the United Kingdom to welcome asylum seekers and migrants, and offer them legal avenues to live” in the East African country, Rwandan Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta said in a statement.
While the conservative British leader had promised to control immigration, a key issue in the Brexit campaign, the number of illegal immigrants crossing the Channel has tripled in 2021. In a speech planned in Kent (south-east of the England), not far from the English coast where migrants arrive by boat, Boris Johnson must detail his measures to “break smuggler structures, step up operations in the English Channel, bring more criminals to justice and end the barbaric trade in human misery”according to Downing Street.
“I understand that these people are looking for a better life (…) and hopes for a new beginningmust declare Mr. Johnson, according to his services. But these hopes, these dreams, have been exploited. These smugglers abuse vulnerable people and turn the Channel into an underwater graveyard.”
This project has aroused outraged reactions, with human rights organizations denouncing its “inhumanity”while the opposition judged that the British Prime Minister was trying to divert attention after being fined for a birthday party in full confinement.