The Home Office and UNHCR have previously clashed over the safety and appropriateness of the Home Office’s policy of forcibly removing some asylum seekers who have recently arrived in the UK in small boats or in the back of trucks to Rwanda to process their applications there. A High Court hearing on June 10 was told the Home Office misled refugees about UN involvement in the Rwandan plans. However, despite UNHCR clarifying its position on the Rwandan government’s plan during the hearing, the Home Office continues to state that UNHCR supports the controversial plan. The first flight, which was scheduled to take off for Rwanda on June 14, found victims of torture and trafficking among those destined for the flight. An interim ruling by the European Court of Human Rights grounded the flight at the eleventh hour. A high court hearing is scheduled for September to determine the legality of Rwanda’s policy. Rwanda deportations: how the UK’s first asylum flight was canceled – video report A critical report on flaws in plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was published last week. The report by the charity Asylos, which produces expert reports on the safety of countries to which the Home Office plans to return asylum, found fundamental inconsistencies between the Home Office’s assessment of Rwanda as a safe third country to send asylum seekers and of his own findings. . In its response to the Guardian on the Asylos report, the Home Office strongly defended the Rwandan plan and said it had the support of the UNHCR. A Home Office spokesman said: “Our own assessment of Rwanda found it to be a fundamentally safe and secure country with a track record of supporting asylum seekers, including working with the UN Refugee Agency, which said the country has a safe and protective environment for refugees. As part of our partnership, the UK is providing an initial investment of £120 million to boost Rwanda’s development, including jobs, skills and opportunities, for the benefit of both migrants and host communities.” Interior Ministry sources added that last year UNHCR and the EU worked with Rwanda to resettle refugees from Libya there and that UNHCR praised the Rwandan government for providing a welcoming and safe environment to vulnerable people around the world. A spokesperson for UNHCR in the UK told the Guardian: “Rwanda has generously hosted around 130,000 refugees in recent decades, mostly from neighboring countries. However, asylum seekers have historically been granted a presumptive (on the face of it) legal status – established procedures for determining individual refugee status in Rwanda are minimal. UNHCR expresses serious concerns about specific deficiencies in Rwanda’s asylum system and Rwanda’s ability to provide long-term solutions for those removed under the proposed agreement.” The spokesman added that the Emergency Transit Mechanism scheme referred to by the Home Office, which evacuates the most vulnerable refugees in Libya to Rwanda, “has very different aims and modalities to what is currently proposed by the UK. Essentially, the ETM is an emergency, temporary and voluntary program – none of which apply to the proposed migration and economic development partnership with Rwanda. ETM does not involve resettlement or long-term integration in Rwanda and refugee status is determined by UNHCR. There is no reasonable comparison between the ETM and what is proposed for asylum seekers forcibly sent from the UK to Rwanda.” Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every weekday morning at 7am. BSTThe comment about Rwanda offering a welcoming and safe environment was made by a Somali refugee who was staying in Rwanda temporarily after being evacuated from Libya before being resettled elsewhere, rather than UNHCR. “I had heard that Rwanda was a safe place and they welcomed refugees,” the refugee said.
