‘Forced’ move: Rwandans grapple with own fears over UK asylum seeker plan
Amid high unemployment and a housing crisis, many in Rwanda are apprehensive about the $272m UK migrant deal criticised by rights groups.
By Andrei Popoviciu
Published On 23 Apr 202423 Apr 2024
Kigali, Rwanda – Lush hills draped in verdure belie the controversies surrounding two locations in Kigali that may soon host hundreds of people who had no plans of ever living in Rwanda.
In northern Kigali, Hope Hostel sits on a hill overlooking the capital.
Across town in the southwest sits the Bwiza Riverside Estate, where manicured greenspaces, fences and small plots of land paint a picture of a quaint neighbourhood – one that, despite its suburban charm, also feels sterile and artificial.
Rwanda’s government has earmarked the two sites to host asylum seekers expected to be sent from the United Kingdom as part of a 220-million-pound ($272m) deal to relocate refugees landing on British shores to the East African country.
After months of wrangling and concerns over the
human rights implications of the deal, the UK’s parliament
passed the bill late on Monday.
It is expected to become law soon despite a cascade of issues regarding the plan’s feasibility, cost and legality and continued criticism from refugee rights activists.
Hope Hostel is one of the proposed locations where asylum seekers from the UK would be housed in Rwanda [Andrei Popoviciu/Al Jazeera]
Known locations
The Hope Hostel neighbourhood on the outskirts of Kigali bustles with street sellers, moto taxis and imposing villas.
According to its managing director, Ismael Bakina, the hostel has 50 double rooms, which can host up to 100 guests.
Initially, the hostel had a different purpose. Until two years ago, it housed survivors of the 1994
genocide, which killed almost a million people, mostly minority ethnic Tutsis.
But after former UK Home Secretary Priti Patel visited the premises on a tightly controlled tour in 2022, the survivors were evacuated without housing alternatives.
For now, the hostel sits empty, awaiting the political process in the UK to reach a conclusion. Bakina told Al Jazeera it is ready to receive asylum seekers as soon as the first flights take off.
In the surrounding neighbourhood, Rwandans were hesitant to speak to Al Jazeera about the deal. Rights groups have often criticised Rwanda for its repressive political environment and restrictions of freedoms of expression. Journalists, opposition figures and activists have also been
jailed or disappeared after criticising the government. Residents who did share their views did so anonymously, and some offered a more neutral take.
One 35-year-old woman named Dativ told Al Jazeera the plan sounded like a great idea because money would come into Rwanda and asylum seekers would bring more employees into the service sector. Rwanda’s economy mainly relies on services, tourism and agriculture.
A 45-year-old man who works as a taxi driver in the same neighbourhood and who refused to give his name, said it could go both ways: Rwandans could have more work but the relocated asylum seekers could also be competing with locals for job opportunities.
A Rwandan government spokesperson said asylum seekers from the UK would receive training and be introduced to the job market.
But Rwandans face an employment crisis with 15 percent of the labour force unemployed in 2023,
according to the World Bank, and the youth
unemployment rate was even higher at more than 20 percent.
These worries are shared on the condition of anonymity by some citizens. The asylum seekers
“went to the UK to look for a better life, not to get tickets to come here”, one Kigali resident, a middle-aged man in a suit, told Al Jazeera.
“Will the government give them jobs or something to do here? They didn’t go [to the UK] for fun, so do you think when they come they will have the same life here they would have had there?”
Unemployment and housing crisis
The UK has provided Rwanda with an initial 220 million pounds ($272m) to take in asylum seekers for five years and has committed 370 million pounds ($456m) over the next five years, regardless of how many people are sent to Rwanda. But when the law passes, each asylum seeker would cost UK taxpayers about 1.8 million pounds ($2.2m), according to the UK auditor.
“We won’t be able to give them jobs. They’ll have money from the UK, but after that finishes, what happens?” Frank Habinenza, head of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda and the only opposition politician elected to parliament, told Al Jazeera.
“We are a small economy with high unemployment and few jobs,” added the aspiring candidate in July’s presidential election.
Kigali has more than 1.2 million inhabitants and its population is increasing while Rwanda has one of the highest population densities in sub-Saharan Africa.
More than half the country’s estimated 13 million people live on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank.
As Kigali’s population expands, housing demand is also escalating, and the government’s decision to repurpose spaces for asylum seekers has ignited a maelstrom of opinions behind closed doors.
Thousands of people were left homeless after the government demolished informal housing in Kigali in 2019,
offering only about $100 per person for temporary relocation to those who owned the property they were occupying at the time of the demolition.
Kigali’s administration estimates that 60 percent of the population live in informal settlements that are subject to natural risks induced by climate change while only 9 percent of Rwandans
can afford the cheapest houses on the market. The average monthly
income per household is about $100.
The shortage of affordable housing is set to
double by 2050 as the city’s population increases and the government fails to achieve its housing development goals.
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