Inside tourist hotel in Rwanda that will host Channel migrants
Inside tourist hotel in Rwanda that will host Channel migrants flown 4,000 miles from the UK for up to three months in Australia-style plan to send them to country in desperate need of young men
Hope House, a hostel in Rwanda’s capital city, Kigali, is currently being used as accommodation for tourists Privately owned, East African nation’s government is understood to be in negotiations to lease the property Huge backlash over the plan today, with campaigners pointing out the country’s mixed human rights record
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Plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda from the UK are anticipated to initially see people taken to a hostel in the capital city for processing.
Hope House, a hostel in Nyabugogo, the Gasabo district of Kigali, is currently being used as accommodation for tourists, according to Rwandan government officials.
Privately owned, the East African nation’s government is understood to be in negotiations to lease the property so asylum seekers sent from the UK can stay there temporarily while their claims are processed. It is understood this could take up to three months.
Home Secretary Priti Patel made a private visit to the site today to see an example of what accommodation may be on offer.
A view of facilities at Hope House, a hostel in Nyabugogo, the Gasabo district of the capital city Kigali, in Rwanda
Plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda from the UK are anticipated to initially see them taken to the former tourist hostel
This is understood to be Ms Patel’s first visit to Rwanda since the deal was thrashed out, after being briefed by Home Office and Foreign Office officials who have been researching the plan.
The complex has 50 rooms at present and can accommodate around 100 people with up to two people per room and sharing communal bathrooms.
But there are plans to expand the facility by building more accommodation blocks, eventually seeing it offer 150 rooms and be able to sleep up to 300 people.
Asylum seekers are expected to be provided meals three times a day to eat in a communal dining room, with some kitchen facilities also available for those with special dietary requirements.
The government’s plan has already faced a massive backlash, with claims that it is both cruel and expensive.
Dr Peter William Walsh, Senior Researcher at the Migration Observatory in Oxford, said it would face ‘all kinds of logistical challenges’.
He told MailOnline: ‘Australia’s offshore experiment was beset by all kinds of problems, with people unable to access healthcare, as well as high rates of suicide and abuse.
‘Then there’s the financial side to it. The Australian system was thought to be 800 times more expensive to house them offshore than in local centres. It cost one billion Australian dollars (£567m) to house fewer than 300 people.
‘There are so many questions about this plan and a lot of scepticism about whether it will actually come to pass given all the challenges it will face.’
Privately owned, the East African nation’s government is understood to be in negotiations to lease the property so asylum seekers sent from the UK can stay there temporarily while their claims are processed
The complex has 50 rooms at present and can accommodate around 100 people with up to two people per room and sharing communal bathrooms
Rwanda is best known in the west for a 1994 ethnic genocide that left up to 800,000 Tutsi people dead and it still has a mixed human rights records.
Amnesty International says there are still concerns over ‘enforced disappearances, allegations of torture and excessive use of force’.
Earlier this month the Refugee Minister Lord Harrington said there was ‘no possibility’ of migrants being sent there.
But Boris Johnson today branded it ‘dynamic’ and one of the safest countries in the world.
It is understood Channel migrants will be processed in the UK and officials will decide whether they are a genuine asylum seeker.
If they are deemed to be economic migrants, they will be sent to Rwanda, where schemes will be put in place to help them build a new life.
It is thought that in other cases, all asylum processing will take place after the claimant arrives in Rwanda. Britain will pay the costs of their resettlement.
There are plans to expand the facility by building more accommodation blocks, eventually seeing it offer 150 rooms and be able to sleep up to 300 people
A source told the Telegraph that the British Army would be involved to prevent ‘battles on the quayside’, adding: ‘They will drive you to the airport and send you straight to Rwanda’.
The Refugee Council charity was among those to urge an immediate rethink of the plan, with chief executive Enver Solomon saying it would not work and would cost the taxpayer around £1.4billion a year as part of the while asylum system.
The United Nations refugee agency also expressed concern over the ‘shifting rather than the sharing of responsibilities’.
Labour and Mr Johnson’s Tory critics claimed it was an expensive move to switch attention away from the Partygate row which continues to embarrass No10.
