London announced on Thursday a controversial plan to control clandestine migration, which includes sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, an African country 7,000 km away, and entrusting the Navy with monitoring illegal arrivals by sea.
“Starting today, the Royal Navy will assume operational command in the English Channel (...) to ensure that no vessel reaches the United Kingdom undetected,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced, during a visit to Dover, on the coast of southern England, where increasing numbers have arrived in recent months of boats with migrants.
The executive will dedicate 50 million pounds (65 million dollars, 60 million euros) to more personnel and new equipment such as helicopters, planes and drones, he said.
At the same time, it reached an agreement with the Rwandan authorities to send to that African country, with a “regrettable human rights record” according to Amnesty International (AI), people entering the United Kingdom illegally.
Interior Minister Priti Patel traveled to Kigali to close this multimillion-dollar agreement, which provoked the indignation of Oenegés like AI, who denounced “a scandalously ill-conceived idea” that “will cause suffering and waste huge sums of public money.”
Rwanda will initially receive 120 million pounds (157 million, 144 million euros) “to accommodate asylum-seekers and migrants and give them a legal avenue for residence” and to “settle permanently, if they so wish” in that country located 7,000 km from the United Kingdom, reported its Minister of Relations Outdoors, Vincent Biruta.
Divert attention
The plan may be applied to all migrants or refugees who arrive in the United Kingdom clandestinely, regardless of the country or continent from which they come.
The British opposition accused Johnson of seeking to divert attention from the scandal over illegal parties on Downing Street during lockdowning, for which he was personally fined on Tuesday, fearing a new crisis within his Conservative Party.
Nadia Hardman, an expert on the protection of asylees and migrants at the oenegé Human Rights Watch, warned of the consequences for refugees such as Syrians. “Syrian refugees are desperate to settle in a safe place,” he told AFP, and “the UK's agreement with Rwanda will only complicate this search.”
“They will arrive in the hope of being treated according to the fundamental values that the United Kingdom claims to uphold, but instead they will be moved miles away to another country on a totally different continent,” he denounced.
“Cowardly, barbaric and inhumane”
Immigration control was one of the key issues during the Brexit campaign and Johnson promised to end clandestine arrivals.
But the numbers continue to increase: 28,500 people carried out the dangerous crossing of the English Channel in 2021 on precarious boats, one of the busiest shipping routes in the world, compared to 8,466 in 2020 and 299 in 2018, according to figures from the Ministry of the Interior.
The British government will also create specific centers to enter clandestine arrivals, similar to those in Greece, to replace existing hotel accommodation.
“Our compassion may be endless, but our ability to help people is not,” Johnson said, eager to improve his popularity ahead of a municipal election in May that may prove crucial to his political future.
Tim Naor Hilton, CEO of the oenegé Refugee Action, denounced the new plan as a “cowardly, barbaric and inhumane way to treat people fleeing persecution and war.”
(With information from AFP)
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