Category Archives: Rwanda

Revealed: Conservatives spent £134m on never-used IT systems for failed Rwanda scheme

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Home Office official says data protection laws caused the cost of its forced removal programme to increase

The Conservative government spent more than £130m on IT and data systems for the scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, which will never be used, the Observer can reveal.

Digital tools needed to put the forced removal programme into effect made up the second-largest chunk of the £715m spent in little over two years, behind only the £290m handed directly to Paul Kagame’s government.

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Halt illegal imports of conflict minerals from DRC, campaigners urge EU

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Law to stop armed groups profiting from trade in gold, tin, tungsten and tantalum is being breached, rights groups say

The European Union has been urged to clamp down on illegal imports of conflict minerals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) after evidence was found that current regulations had been breached.

The advocacy group Global Witness (GW) said there remained a “high risk” of the EU’s mineral imports being used to fund militias and state repression in several countries.

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Court ruling on Belgium’s conduct in colonial Africa hailed as turning point

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Verdict of crimes against humanity for kidnap of mixed-race children could pave way for wider justice, activists say

A historic court ruling that found Belgium guilty of crimes against humanity during its colonial rule of central Africa has been hailed as a turning point that could pave the way for compensation and other forms of justice.

Belgium’s court of appeal ruled last month that the “systematic kidnapping” of mixed-race children from their African mothers in Belgian-ruled Congo, Rwanda and Burundi was a crime against humanity. The case was brought by five women who were removed from their Congolese mothers as small children between 1948 and 1953, and who now live in Belgium and France. Each was awarded €50,000 (£42,000) in damages.

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Rwandan forces and M23 rebels shelled refugee camps in DRC, report claims

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Human Rights Watch alleges potential violation of international human rights law on many occasions this year

Rwandan forces and M23 rebels have shelled refugee camps and other highly populated areas in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo on many occasions this year, Human Rights Watch has claimed.

The NGO also accused the DRC’s armed forces and its allied militias of putting the camps’ residents in danger by stationing their artillery nearby in its report alleging violation of international humanitarian and human rights law in the longstanding war in the central African country.

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African health officials call for solidarity not travel bans over mpox outbreak

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Head of Africa CDC Jean Kaseya urges international community to support rollout of testing and vaccinations

African health officials have appealed to the international community not to impose travel bans on countries dealing with an outbreak of mpox, but instead to support the continent in rolling out testing and vaccinations.

There have been about 1,400 new cases and 24 deaths linked to a new variant of mpox over the past week, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

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‘A revolution is building’: can young people force change across Africa?

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Africa has the youngest population of any continent, and recent protests in Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda suggest growing youth disillusionment. Will they be able to turn discontent into action?

The youth-led protests that have broken out in several African countries over the past weeks should, say observers, serve as warnings that a disillusioned generation blame the elders of the ruling political classes for missed economic opportunities.

From mid-June to early August, young people in Kenya hit the streets protesting against what they described as runaway corruption and high taxes levied by President William Ruto’s regime. In Uganda, what was shaping up as protests against the government in July were nipped in the bud by police after President Yoweri Museveni’s warning that those thinking of such protests “were playing with fire”. Nigeria saw short-lived protests against the poor handling of the economy by President Bola Tinubu’s government.

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Home Office will decide asylum claims of thousands stuck in Rwanda scheme limbo

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Previous UK government had built up backlog of 90,000 people whose claims it deemed ‘inadmissible’

Thousands of asylum seekers left in limbo for more than two years as they awaited a decision on the Rwanda scheme will now have their cases decided in the UK.

The decision, revealed during a high court challenge on Friday, is a sharp shift in position from the previous government, which had passed various laws declaring that the claims of those who arrived after January 2022 were “inadmissible” – and so could not be processed in the UK.

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Rwanda’s Paul Kagame cruises to crushing election victory

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President wins 99.15% of the vote, allowing him to extend authoritarian rule by further five years

Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, has swept to another overwhelming election victory, winning more than 99% of votes in a provisional count in the east African country’s elections that will extend his near quarter of a century in power.

The poll on Monday was seen as a formality, with just two other candidates allowed to compete in a country that is kept under tight control by its longtime leader.

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Paul Kagame expected to be re-elected president as Rwanda goes to polls

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Incumbent since 2000 is seeking fourth term after winning more than 90% of votes in last three ballots

People in Rwanda have gone to the polls for elections in which Paul Kagame is widely expected to extend his rule of the central African country.

This is the fourth presidential ballot since more than 800,000 people, mostly members of the Tutsi ethnic minority, were killed in a genocide in the country 30 years ago.

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Syrian asylum seeker in UK says he ‘lost everything’ after Rwanda roundup

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People held before planned removal from UK under Sunak government face disruption and relocation after release

A Syrian asylum seeker who was one of 220 people arrested and detained in preparation for forced removal to Rwanda says he has lost everything after his release.

Critics described the high-profile mass roundups before the local elections in May as a “stunt” that needlessly disrupted the lives of many.

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Civil servants obliged to carry out Tory Rwanda deportations, court rules

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Union for civil servants claimed Home Office staff could be open to prosecution if Strasbourg rulings on Rwanda ignored

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Guidance drawn up by Conservative ministers which told civil servants to ignore Strasbourg rulings and remove asylum seekers to Rwanda is lawful, the high court has ruled.

The FDA trade union, which represents senior civil servants, brought legal action claiming senior Home Office staff could be in breach of international law if they implement the government’s Rwanda deportation bill.

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More than £320m spent on Rwanda policy will be lost if Tories lose election

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Costs of trying to deport asylum seekers cannot be recovered if Labour wins and disbands policy

More than £320m spent by the government on the controversial scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is likely to be lost if the Conservatives are voted out of power at Thursday’s general election.

The sum has been spent on economic development money for Rwanda, along with set-up costs for the scheme, which cannot be recovered if it does not go ahead.

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‘Nowhere to go’: people trapped in eastern DRC as rebel militia seize key town

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Rwandan-backed rebels seize Kanyabayonga, says official, already home to thousands driven from their homes by conflict

Rwandan-backed M23 rebels have seized a strategic town in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s volatile east, a local official said.

“Kanyabayonga has been in the hands of the M23 since Friday evening,” the administrative official said, under condition of anonymity.

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Sunak defends decision not to take immediate action against Tories in betting scandal – as it happened

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Prime minister faces claim Tories are ‘stealing the candlesticks’ on the way out of government

After a passage in his speech attack Labour on familiar grounds, Rishi Sunak also hit out at Reform UK.

[Reform UK] are not on the side of who you think they are.

Reform are standing candidates here in Scotland that are pro independence and anti monarchy.

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Rwanda opposition leader barred from standing against president

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Diane Rwigara’s name missing from list of candidates to challenge Paul Kagame in 15 July vote

A prominent opponent of the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, has been barred from standing in next month’s election to challenge his three-decade rule.

Diane Rwigara, the leader of the People Salvation Movement, who was also barred in 2017, launched her election bid in May and submitted her candidacy last week. Her name was missing from the provisional list of candidates announced by the electoral commission on Thursday.

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Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda admission sparks legal action from detained asylum seekers

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Migrants seek redress for ‘immense distress’ from deportations now thrown into chaos by election announcement

Asylum seekers detained by the Home Office and threatened with deportation to Rwanda are set to take legal action against the government after Rishi Sunak admitted that no flights will take place before the general election.

The Home Office started raiding accommodation and detaining people who arrived at routine immigration-reporting appointments on 29 April in a nationwide push codenamed Operation Vector.

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Rwanda’s top UK diplomat oversaw use of Interpol to target regime opponents

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Exclusive: Johnston Busingye formally appointed days after UK agreed Rwanda asylum deal with Paul Kagame in 2022

Rwanda’s top diplomat in the UK oversaw the use of the international justice system to target opponents of the country’s rulers around the world, the Guardian can reveal.

New details of the Rwandan government’s suppression of opposition beyond its borders add to concerns about the regime at the heart of Rishi Sunak’s asylum policy.

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Labour says early general election leaves many government commitments ‘in the bin’ – as it happened

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Bills, including smoking ban for people born after 2009, unlikely to become law before 4 July vote

Rishi Sunak is now speaking at an event in Ilkeston in Derbyshire. It is in the Erewash constituency, where the Tory MP Maggie Throup had a majority of 10,606 at the last election.

He repeats the claim that a Labour government would cost every family £2,000.

Labour’s spending promises cost £16 billion per year in 2028-29, or £58.9 billion over the next four years.

But their revenue raisers would only collect £6.2 billion per year in 2028-29, or £20.4 billion over the next four years.

I don’t really think the arrangements in Scotland for the school holidays have really been anywhere near the calculations made by the prime minister …

I think it would be respectful if that was the case but it’s pretty typical of the lack of respect shown to Scotland that we’re an afterthought from the Westminster establishment and particularly the Conservative establishment.

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Rwanda denies entry to senior human rights researcher

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Human Rights Watch says Clementine De Montjoye’s case raises fresh questions about UK’s asylum seeker scheme

The Rwandan government has barred a senior human rights researcher from entering the country, prompting accusations that officials are seeking to dodge independent scrutiny just weeks before the UK government is due to send asylum seekers there for the first time.

Rwandan immigration authorities denied entry to Clementine de Montjoye, a senior researcher in Human Rights Watch’s Africa division, when she arrived at Kigali International Airport on 13 May.

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‘Bullet wounds are common’: crime rife in DRC’s rebel-besieged city of Goma

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Robberies, shootings, extortion and rapes have surged since the Rwandan-backed M23 militia cut off the eastern Congolese capital

In broad daylight on 16 April, three armed and uniformed men held up a city centre mobile phone shop.

Threatening staff, they helped themselves to about £700 worth of goods, before making off on a motorbike, disappearing into the busy streets of Goma, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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