Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I’ve been deported to Rwanda once.. if it happens again I think I will die
A MIGRANT facing a second deportation to Rwanda fears he will not survive this time.
Kidane was sent to the East African country by Israel and said the UK, like the Israelis, want to dispose of him.
He said: “We have been treated like cattle. We are not seen as human beings. The UK just wants to get rid of all refugees and asylum seekers.”
Kidane, 29, not his real name, has spent 11 years travelling thousands of miles and faced death to seek asylum in the UK. He is in an asylum centre in Cardiff and said: “To be deported to Rwanda would be a huge threat to my life. I’d do the whole journey again and I might not survive it.”
In 2011, aged 18, he fled a dictatorship in his native Eritrea, described by Human Rights Watch as one of the world’s most repressive countries, after armed guards turned up at his school threatening him and his family. An informant claimed they planned to leave the country. Facing arbitrary arrest and detention without trial, he felt he had no choice but to leave.
He went to Israel and did odd jobs as a waiter and mental health counsellor. But he was then detained in the notorious prison camp Holot in the middle of the desolate Israeli desert. In 2016, after spending months there, Kidane was told he would be sent back to Eritrea or imprisoned indefinitely unless he went to Rwanda.
He said Rwanda was his only option and he was deported, via Istanbul, with a $3,500 “settlement grant” and entry permit. Israeli officials said he could apply for asylum in Rwanda, get a job and be protected.
But he said on arrival their permits and visas were taken away and they spent three weeks in a tightly guarded hotel not knowing what would happen to them.
He said immigration officers took them to Uganda, which cost them $150 and a further $150 to get to the capital Kampala. Kidane said: “The Israeli Government used this as a way to get rid of us and that is exactly what the UK Government is doing.”
From Kampala, Kidane’s journey became a nightmare. After spending 10 days in Uganda he reached South Sudan, where armed militia attacked the convoy he was travelling in. Four of his friends were killed and he was imprisoned in a brutal jail.
He bribed an official and escaped and had to pay another $2,500 to get into Libya.
“People who couldn’t pay were killed, but other people were beaten and robbed. Libya is littered with graveyards.” Kidane finally reached
Italy by boat and spent four years in Germany. This year he tried to reach his brother living in the UK by paying smugglers to take him on a boat from Calais.
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said Israel dumped the policy because of what happened to some of the people.
“The Rwanda deal is unworkable, unethical and extortionately expensive.” A Home Office spokesman said: “Rwanda is fundamentally safe and secure, with a track record of supporting asylum seekers.”
We’ve been treated like cattle, we are not seen as human beings MIGRANT KIDANE ON HIS HORRENDOUS TREATMENT