17 April 2022
Rwanda/GB: There is insufficient evidence that the 120m GBP sending-refugees-to-Rwanda-scheme will deter refugees from entering Britain. But lack of evidence does not necessarily mean it won’t work… In the meantime, in his Easter Sunday preach, the Archbishop of Canterbury has called the scheme “the opposite of the nature of God”. But that does not mean that its inventors (Pritia Patel, home minister, and her Prime Minister) won’t continue to defend it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-61133983
16 April 2022
UK/Rwanda: Under the new “migrant policy”, migrants thought to have entered the UK “unlawfully” since 1st of January 2022 can be flown to Kigali – there to be allowed to apply for the right to settle in Rwanda. UNHCR has strongly “condemned ‘outsourcing’ the responsibility of considering refugee status to another country”. The policy seems to infringe upon the human rights principle of ‘non-refoulement’ guaranteeing “that no one can be returned to a country where they would face irreparable harm”. Also, the programme – which is certainly going to be very costly – is unlikely to act as a real deterrent: Israel’s attempts to send Eritrean and Sudanese refugees to Rwanda had ended in them simply leaving there and starting all over again.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-61122241
Nigeria/USA: Washington will sell 12 attack helicopters as well as Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) rockets to Abuja – the second major arms sale in five years. Before that, under Obama, human rights concerns had made the US refuse arms requests by Nigeria.
BBC Africa Latest Updates 15 April 2022. 18:05