Controversial plans to relocate male asylum seekers to Rwanda have been announced by the government today.
Furious concerns have been raised by human rights groups like Amnesty International, while Labour has described the plans as "unethical". The scheme could also face legal challenges.
Rwanda's record on human rights is extremely poor, with torture in detention well documented, as well as enforced disappearances and a practically non-existent free press.
Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty UK's Refugee and Migrant Rights Director, said: "Sending people to another country - let alone one with such a dismal human rights record - for asylum ‘processing’ is the very height of irresponsibility and shows how far removed from humanity and reality the Government now is on asylum issues."
The government insists Rwanda is an ideal location as it "recognised globally" for welcoming and integrating migrants, though the specifics of this are disputed.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted there would be a Memorandum of Understanding spelling out how people sent to Rwanda from the UK should be treated.
Despite deals falling through with Albania and Ghana, he claimed: "This is not something we’ve put together overnight, this has been nine months in preparation."
Where is Rwanda?
Rwanda is a country in Eastern Africa, surrounded by Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo).
The capital of the "land of a thousand hills" is Kigali, which has a population of 1.1 million out of the country's total of roughly 12.3 million.
Its beautiful scenery has been described as a "tropical Switzerland", but it is best known for darker occurrences.
During the 1994 genocide, part of the Rwandan civil war, a tenth of its population was slaughtered in around 100 days. The people killed were mainly members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group and around 800,000 people lost their lives.
Paul Kagame has ruled the country almost ever since, winning 99% of the vote in a 2017 election he branded "just a formality".
Is Rwanda safe?
While the government argues that migrants in Rwanda will be well-treated, they will be entering a country in which human rights abuses are "commonplace".
The Rwandan government said migrants will be "entitled to full protection under Rwandan law, equal access to employment, and enrolment in healthcare and social care services".
No.10 boasted Rwanda is "recognised globally for its record on welcoming and integrating migrants".
There are contradictions in a report from 2018 by the Forced Migration Review that did say "refugees have the freedom to move outside their designated camps and the right to engage in wage-earning or self-employed activities".
It also read: "A key finding is that although Congolese refugees officially have the right to work, in reality their experiences in the local labour market differ considerably from that of local Rwandans.
"Congolese refugees are significantly more likely to be unemployed than locals, and a major reason for this, given by the refugees themselves, relates to local employers' lack of knowledge of the refugees’ right to work."
Job opportunities may increase over time as the West continues to invest in the country. Rwanda ranked fourth in investment attractiveness in Africa, according to Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) in late 2021.
This relationship with Western money has been built mainly by President Kagame, criticised for his oppression of opponents and the press.
He built alliances with the West as Rwanda transitioned away from its bloody civil war. But Human Rights Watch warns that Rwandan refugees who criticise the government “have been threatened and harassed”, while those in exile have been “forcibly disappeared and returned to Rwanda, or killed”.
In 2011 two Rwandan exiles in London were warned they faced the threat of assassination from a government-ordered hitman. Rwanda’s High Commission denied ordering the hit.
Where will asylum seekers be sent?
So far, the accommodation seen by reporters has been called "stripped back and basic", after they were shown a guest house outside Kigali.
Officials said arrivals will not be detained and will have safe and clean accommodation, food, healthcare and amenities, plus access to translators, legal support and appeals in Rwanda’s courts.
The guest house has a communal eating area that serves three meals a day and 12 toilets and five showers are divided up among 100 people. Small bedrooms house two people at once.
Two more 50-room blocks are planned for this particular compound, but it is not known when they will be finished.
The government said that an "unlimited" number of asylum seekers will be able to be sent to Rwanda.
Sonya Sceats, chief executive of Freedom From Torture, commented: “Boris Johnson’s plan to imprison refugees in prison camps in Rwanda is deeply disturbing and should horrify anybody with a conscience.
"It is even more dismaying that the UK government has agreed this deal with a state known to practice torture, as we know from the many Rwandan torture survivors we have treated over the years."
