International
UK Rwanda asylum seekers’ deal a slap in the face of UNHCR
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.