The Head of State made the disclosure at the 3rd Qatar Economic Forum reacting to a question about criticisms by a United Nations agency which recently claimed that sending migrants to Rwanda would bring potential harm.
Kagame was also asked to comment on possible benefits for Rwanda to pull from the Migration and Economic Development Partnership signed between Rwanda and UK in April last year.
“We did not really beg anybody to work with us or to send migrants to Rwanda. It’s an idea that developed to solve a problem. And migrant issues are about human capital gaps that exist and have these movements but the origin can also be instability in different parts of the world,” he said.
“The partnership, therefore, was forged around saying how do we address this problem? And there came a development partnership around that, which would mean resettling migrants who need to settle down and have the freedom to do what they want to do in places that they are stable,” added Kagame.
The President highlighted that In fact the current UK migration problem that is being talked about, came later following Rwanda’s interventions to help migrants from Libya.
He explained that the efforts have yielded fruits adding that more European countries are contacting Rwanda for similar agreements to address migrant crisis.
“We started with resettling, and receiving people from Libya, who were stuck in Libya because of instability that developed in Libya and there were many Africans coming from different parts of Africa caught up in Libya heading to Europe,” noted Kagame.
“It started in 2018, and we have heard a number of them brought to Rwanda. Some stayed, processed, others have gone to different countries but it has been done properly and saved lives of people who were caught up in the situation. Learning from that, that is how the UK [partnership works], and there are other European countries that have been contacting us to address this,” he added.
The President also reiterated Rwanda’s readiness to receive migrants working with UK.
Kagame’s comments followed statements by the United Kingdom (UK) Home Office accusing the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) of hypocrisy regarding their plan to send migrants and asylum seekers to Rwanda.
In 2019, the UNHCR played a crucial role in a program aimed at relocating migrants stranded in Libya. This initiative, supported by the Rwandan government and other partners, led to the establishment of a transit camp in Gashora, Bugesera District.
The migrants housed in this facility receive accommodation and necessary care. Since the program’s inception, over 1,500 migrants have been relocated to Gashora, with nearly a thousand of them being granted asylum in third countries.
However, despite this precedent, the UNHCR opposes the United Kingdom’s policy of relocating migrants to Rwanda. This position became evident during a recent hearing at the British Court of Appeal.
The UK Ministry of Interior has labelled the criticisms as a double standard given that Rwanda and the UNHCR already have a similar agreement in place.
The agreement signed last year sets the stage for the deportation of migrants and asylum seekers staying in the UK illegally to Rwanda.
The UK made this decision to discourage illegal crossings into the country and to reduce the budget spent on illegal migrants every year.
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