UK: Rwanda flights to start soon
LONDON – The British government said Friday that it plans to start putting asylum-seekers on one-way flights to Rwanda within weeks, as it defended a deal that has outraged refugee groups and humanitarian organizations.
Britain and Rwanda announced Thursday that they had struck an agreement that will see some people arriving in the U.K. as stowaways on trucks or in boats sent 4,000 miles to the East African country, where their asylum claims will be processed and, if successful, they will stay.
The British government says the plan will discourage people from making dangerous attempts to cross the English Channel, and put peoplesmuggling gangs out of business.
But critics of the Conservative government said legal and political hurdles mean the flights may never happen. They accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of using the headlinegrabbing policy to distract attention from his political troubles. Johnson is resisting calls to resign after being fined by police this week for attending a party in his office in 2020 that broke coronavirus lockdown rules.
Conservative lawmaker Andrew Griffith, a senior Johnson adviser, said the flights to Rwanda could start “in weeks or a small number of months.”
Migration Minister Tom Pursglove said the plan was needed to deter people trying to reach Britain in boats from northern France. More than 28,000 migrants entered the U.K. across the Channel last year, up from 8,500 in 2020. Dozens have died, including 27 people in November when a single boat capsized.