British home secretary defends deporting migrants to Rwanda

Britain's Home Secretary Suella Braverman says she is convinced Rwanda is a safe country to deport migrants who arrived in Britain illegally.

That is despite evidence that 12 Congolese refugees were shot dead by police there in 2018.

During the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Braverman was presented with evidence from the United Nations refugee agency that a group of Congolese refugees were shot during protests over cuts to food rations.

After being shown a video of the aftermath, the home secretary said, "That might be 2018, we're looking at 2023 and beyond."

She said Rwanda has "a track record of successfully resettling and integrating people who are refugees or asylum seekers."

Braverman said the UK High Court had found Rwanda to be safe, but she acknowledged the plans were still facing a legal challenge. "The High Court, senior expert judges, have looked into the detail of our arrangement with Rwanda and found it to be a safe country and found our arrangements to be lawful."

In December 2022, the UK High Court ruled in favor of the British government’s controversial policy to fly asylum seekers to Rwanda, ignoring the criticisms by human right groups who depict the plan as inhumane. But opponents are seeking to appeal that ruling.

The British government is hoping to send thousands of migrants more than 4,000 miles away to the African country as part of a deal to deter asylum seekers crossing the English Channel from France in small boats.

Under the government's proposals, people who arrive in the UK through illegal routes could be sent to Rwanda on a one-way ticket to claim asylum there.

In February, Britain set out details of a new law barring the entry of asylum seekers arriving in small boats across the Channel that will prevent them from claiming asylum and will aim to deport them either back to their homeland or to so-called safe third countries.

The government's legislation made provisions for individuals to challenge the decision to send them to Rwanda in cases of "extreme circumstances" of "unforeseeable, serious and irreversible harm," Braverman said.

The UK has reportedly paid cash-strapped Rwanda 148 million dollars upfront for the deportation deal and plans on making additional payments to the African country based on the number of asylum-seekers it deports.

Human rights groups say it is immoral and inhumane to send people more than  6,400 kilometers to a country they don’t want to live in. They also cite Rwanda’s poor human rights record, including allegations of torture and killings of government opponents.

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