“Rwanda Model”: Welcome to Rwanda | Time online

If you land on UK shores as a migrant or refugee from Afghanistan, Iraq or India, meaning you cross the English Channel on a small, usually overcrowded boat, you’ll soon have a piece of paper in your hand and the British government has been pressed its way – a Home Office information sheet with everything you need to know. Rwanda Want to know. There, 6,600 kilometers away in Rwanda, people must find a new home. The blurred map shows the African continent, with a dot roughly in the middle.

I’m being sent to Rwanda – what does that mean for me?

Where is Rwanda? – Rwanda is located in Central Africa. If you look at the world map, Rwanda is located south of the equator.

The agreement would be unique: a European country would send back all arrivals without exception, whether they were migrants or refugees. In a country completely foreign to them. There, in Rwanda, they have to submit an asylum application – for which Rwanda receives money England receives But the average Afghan doesn’t know as much about Rwanda as the average German, hence the information sheet. For this plan, the British government has been frequently criticized by human rights organizations, migration researchers and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, who considers the plan to be “absolutely wrong”.

The government says it wants to stop people from making the dangerous crossings and destroy the smugglers’ business. Meanwhile, the Traffic Light consortium wants to explore whether asylum procedures can be outsourced to third countries, as was decided this Monday. And Italy Plans to send asylum seekers to Albania If so, can there be any good in this idea – for all parties? Will the Rwandan accord not abolish refugee protection, but merely relocate it?

In Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, with well-maintained roads over the mountains. Column-shaped speed traps, imported from Germany, are located every hundred meters and fine notification comes through SMS. Things are more orderly in Kigali than in many European cities. Rwandans meet once a month for “Umukanda”, a day of purification and community. Plastic bags are banned here and are not allowed to be carried into the country. The crime rate is low, corruption is rarer than in any other African country, and the economy is booming: Volkswagen built a factory in Rwanda in 2018, and BioNTech will soon open its first vaccine factory in Africa in Kigali.

What can I expect when I arrive in Rwanda? – (…) When Rwanda processes your asylum application, you will be looked after and supported. These include safe and clean housing, food, sanitation, leisure facilities and recreational opportunities.

The groundwork for the deal has already been laid. It is a bit difficult to visit. In Kigali, a four-lane road runs south out of the city. 25 minutes from the city center, opposite a gas station, turn left onto a dirt road. Children in school uniforms and construction workers in neon vests are out here.