In the absence of legal pathways, desperate people continue to embark on dangerous journeys by sea, leading to the tragic loss of life.

 

Most of the affected people exploit the crisis in Libya to access the sea. Human traffickers have taken advantage of the situation. Those who can’t pay to be crossed over the waters are brutally killed. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has known this for over half a decade now and failed to fix it.

 

It was until Rwanda offered a helping hand that the UNHCR jumped on the opportunity to support Rwanda’s initiative. The UN agency spends millions of dollars on chartered planes to fly asylum seekers to Rwanda where they are accorded safety.

 

So far, over 1,000 were flown out of Libya, to Rwanda. These critical life-saving flights from Libya to Rwanda have been persistent since 2019.

 

The UNHCR continuously posted articles on its website, praising the welfare of over 127,000 refugees in Rwanda. The same UN agency unceasingly reports that an estimated 94% of refugee children in Rwanda attend primary school.

 

The UNHCR knows very well that refugees and asylum seekers are treated with a lot of nobility in Rwanda because of the legal frameworks in place to protect them. In fact, it has records of asylum seekers who opted to take Rwandan citizenship rather than be processed and sent to Western countries.

 

When, in 2021, the US announced an unconditional withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan, a group of young girls from Afghanistan had hundreds of countries to go to. The girls at the School of Leadership Afghanistan, or SOLA, an all-girls boarding school in Kabul opted to come to Rwanda.

 

“Out of the blue, Rwanda became a possibility and quite fortunately we were quickly welcomed,” Shabana Basij-Rasikh, an Afghan educator, humanitarian, and women's rights champion said at the Commonwealth Youth Forum, in Kigali, on June 20.

 

"When Kabul fell under the control of the Taliban, we managed within a few days to evacuate our entire school community and we safely landed in Rwanda on August 25, 2021 and, four days later, we resumed classes.”

 

Ever wondered why all this happened? What is special about Rwanda? The UK Home Office has attested to the facts.

 

Double standards

 

Enter the UK-Rwanda migration and economic partnership deal, and the UNHCR suddenly changed stance and started demonizing Rwanda.

 

In 2018, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) cut food rations for refugees in Rwanda by 25 percent prompting protests in Kiziba refugee camp. Refugees were angered by the food reduction and embarked on a violent protest attacking UNHCR and WFP personnel running the camp.

 

The angry refugees wanted to commit murder. They were baying for the UNHCR’s blood and that of Rwandan official. When Rwandan security organs intervened to calm the situation and save the UN staff, they were added to the list of targets. Some Rwandan police officers were hurt during the fracas while 11 refugees died. The chaos had to be stopped unless the UN agency was willing to sacrifice its staff in exchange for cutting food rations. The same UNHCR that could have lost so many of its staff members has now turned against Rwanda; alleging that the country is unsafe for the UK to send refugees and asylum seekers there.

 

Why does the UNHCR behave like this? Rwanda is fixing the Libyan refugee crisis and the success is not what the UNHCR expected but it can’t reverse the trend.

 

The SOLA girls opted to come to Rwanda without the involvement of UNHCR. This meant that at one point, the UNHCR would be deemed irrelevant if countries are able to fix a refugee crisis without involving the UN refugee agency. The UN is a cash cow. So little is ever achieved by the organ but there is so much money spent where the UN is involved.

 

By questioning Rwanda's ability to offer safety and opportunities to migrants and refugees, the UNHCR is trying not to lose money. If one mirrored the UNHCR in the image of MONUSCO they would know how much the UN mission in DRC will never want the crisis there to end since they make money out of it. Instead of fixing the problem, they amplify it.

 

The UNHCR’s position on the matter pertaining to the UK refugees and asylum seekers is purely about staying in business and making money out of a crisis. They don’t offer, and are not interested in, a better or alternative solution.