THE HAPPY HOTEL
A gift shop where everything’s free, volleyball court, computer suites and three chef-prepared meals a day. No wonder locals are calling the Rwandan lodgings awaiting deportees from the UK...
THe smiling, well-dressed staff at Rwanda’s Hope Hotel are waiting excitedly for their next – rather unusual – set of guests about to arrive from Britain.
This week, as long as the Government defeats various legal challenges, the visitors checking in at the smart reception desk will be migrants deported from the UK after illegally making their way across the Channel on dinghies.
‘We want to make them happy here,’ said 34-year-old Bakini Ismael, managing director of the 50-room establishment in Rwanda’s capital city Kigali yesterday. ‘We will welcome them as though they are paying guests on holiday in Africa.
‘everything is ready for them. We will give out free cigarettes, and have built pretty gazebos in the garden where they can smoke, because we want them to have some pleasures in their life.’
It will be a far cry from the British deportation centres where the 150 migrants on the deportation list ‘with no right to be in the UK’ are being held amid strict security after being arrested by immigration police.
Under a contentious deal between Britain and Rwanda, migrants who originate from countries including Somalia, the Sudan, Albania, Iran, Iraq, and Vietnam will be flown 4,000 miles on a privately chartered plane from London to the east African country where they will land on
‘We’ll welcome them all with open arms’
Wednesday morning. They will be bussed half an hour away from Kigali airport to the Hope Hotel, a well-appointed modern building, with a four-storey floor-to-ceiling atrium, set in rolling green lawns dotted with jacaranda trees and surrounded by box tree hedges.
There, the migrants will sleep in twin rooms with double beds covered by mosquito nets, colourful rugs on the floor and a set of slippers in the side tables.
At each bedside is an array of shower gels and soaps, and a list of phone numbers so they can call the hotel manager, find an interpreter, or get medical help at any time of the day or night on mobile phones handed to them on arrival.
In the hallway is a ‘suggestions’ box’ where they can make complaints if they don’t like the way they are being treated or find something wrong with the hotel service. There is also a collection of newly installed washing machines for them to clean their clothes.
But none of the guests will have to clear up or scrub dishes after they have eaten in the airy restaurant. There are staff to take care of that. The migrants will be
Pot luck: Chefs at the Hope Hotel are ready to offer halal dishes suitable for Muslim guests
served three meals a day cooked by a Rwandan chef in a smart white uniform, who is an expert in preparing halal dishes suitable for Muslims.
Their leisure time has been catered for too, with a volleyball pitch under construction at the side of the hotel. ‘ We will offer them all they could wish for,’ said Mr Ismael.
That certainly has the ring of truth. New computers have been installed in special ‘business’ areas, so guests can keep in touch with family and friends in their home countries or back in the UK. There are two prayer rooms, and a gift shop where everything will be given away free: from cigarettes, to boxer shorts and white T-shirts.
‘We will do anything to make their stay a good one,’ added Mr Ismael, with a smile. The British
Government is to pay £60 a day for each migrant’s accommodation under the £120million deal to ‘offshore’ the processing of asylum applications in Rwanda, which enjoys a Mediterranean-style climate and lush green countryside.
A spokesman for the Rwanda government has said: ‘ The migrants coming from your country will not be locked up. You don’t do that to guests.
‘They will not be prisoners, but be able to leave and enter the Hope Hotel whenever they wish.’
Once their asylum status has been decided, and if they get the right to settle here, the migrants will have to leave the hotel permanently to go and live among, and like, other Rwandans.
The asylum process in Kigali is expected to take less than four months – significantly faster than the overstretched system in the
UK where tens of thousands languish, often for years, in hotels, hostels and rented rooms.
Besides the Hope Hotel, two others in Kigali – the Rouge by Desir with a swimming pool and balcony rooms with stunning views of Rwanda’s mountains, and the Hallmark boasting 20 villas with private gardens – have been blockbooked by the UK Government until October.
At the Rouge by Desir, general manager Denis Bizimungu said: ‘We will welcome these migrants with open arms. We will try to make them forget the problems that made them leave their country.
‘We want to make sure that the idea of crossing the sea by boat never comes back to them. We want their hearts to be filled with joy in Rwanda.
‘Under this deal with Britain, all the costs of their stay are being paid by your Government.’
Yet despite what will be a pampered life in the sunshine for the illegal migrants, their deportation is causing furious rows in the UK.
Prince Charles has reportedly said the forced removal to Rwanda is ‘appalling’, the UN Refugee Agency claims it breaches human rights and an array of pro-migration charities, with the help of Left-wing lawyers, are challenging tomorrow’s departure flight in the highest courts in the land.
One issue campaigners will raise is the danger of the UK deportees contracting malaria in Rwanda.
Malaria, caused by mosquito bites, claimed 700 lives there in 2016, a figure that dropped to 148 in 2020 as the country of 13million people fought the disease with insecticide-laced mosquito nets.
It has the 15th highest incidence
‘Come as a guest, leave as a friend’
of malaria in the world, but thanks to health campaigns by the free national medical service and the latest treatments, now has only 1 per cent of global malaria deaths.
Many of the migrants listed for deportation come from countries, such as the Sudan, with a substantially higher number of malaria deaths than Rwanda.
The Daily Mail was shown around the Hope Hotel by the Rwandan officials in charge of making the migrants feel at home but who said they had no idea how many would arrive.
‘We are in close touch with the Home Office in London and we know that court hearings could happen right up to the time the flight takes off so numbers may go down,’ said one.
He added: ‘When the plane takes off, your Government will send us a manifest of passengers on board. If there are more than the 100 who can be accommodated at the Hope Hotel, the two other hotels are ready to take the extras.’
He revealed that five hotels could finally be made available to British illegals once the Rwanda scheme is fully under way. The Hope’s motto – written in large letters at the entrance gate – says: ‘Come as a guest, Leave as a friend.’
‘We hope that will be the case,’ says Mr Ismael as he waves us goodbye after our visit.
Along the road at the busy shopping centre, Rwandans are waiting for the migrant customers to visit them and spend a portion of the weekly cash allowances granted them by the Home Office.
‘We have been told they will come here as we are so nearby. They can buy sim cards, bananas, everything is here,’ said a man called Pierre standing outside a pharmacy and small convenience store.
There is a cafe, a bottle store and hair stylists for women. Further on down the street are fruit and vegetable stalls at the roadside.
‘Already we calling it the Happy Hotel,’ added Pierre, in his fifties. ‘We hope Rwanda will be good for your migrant people, and good for us too.’