Day: April 21, 2022

The British government is facing strong backlash from opposition parties and human rights groups after announcing plans earlier this month to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda for processing, in a bid to deter migrants from crossing the English Channel in small boats.

The British government says the prospect of being sent to Rwanda will deter migrants from embarking on the treacherous journey.

Record numbers

More than 4,500 migrants have crossed the English Channel from France to Britain in small boats this year, four times more than the total this time last year. There have been dozens of fatalities, including 27 migrants who drowned when their boat capsized off the northern French coast in November.

There is broad political agreement that the dangerous treks must stop, along with bitter debate about how that can be accomplished.

Britain’s latest plan is to fly migrants more than 6,000 kilometers to Rwanda, where they will be put in holding centers while their asylum claims are processed. Britain’s home secretary, Priti Patel, signed the policy alongside Vincent Biruta, Rwanda’s minister of foreign affairs, during a visit to Kigali earlier this month.

“The persistent circumventing of our laws and immigration rules and the reality of a system that is open to gain and to criminal exploitation has eroded public support for Britain’s asylum system and those who genuinely need access to it,” Patel told reporters. “Putting evil people, smugglers, out of business is a moral imperative. It requires us to use every tool at our disposal and also to find new solutions.”

“Working together, the United Kingdom and Rwanda will help make the immigration system fairer, ensure that people are safe and enjoy new opportunities to flourish. We have agreed that people who enter the U.K. illegally will be considered for relocation to Rwanda to have their asylum claims decided and those who are resettled will be given the support, including up to five years of training, with the help of integration, accommodation, [and] health care so that they can resettle and thrive,” the British home secretary said on April 14.

Britain has paid Rwanda an initial $156 million for a five-year trial plan. Britain will also pay Rwanda for each migrant the African nation accepts.

“This [plan] will not only help them, but it will benefit Rwanda and Rwandans and help to advance our own development,” Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Vincent Biruta told reporters.

Bitter backlash

The policy has prompted a furious response in Britain and elsewhere. Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby — the most senior cleric in the Anglican Church — criticized the policy in his Easter sermon. “Subcontracting out our responsibilities, even to a country that seeks to do well, like Rwanda, is the opposite of the nature of God,” Welby said.

Migrant support groups say Britain should not be outsourcing refugee processing to Rwanda, a country where London itself has flagged human rights concerns.

“We think it’s inhumane, it’s going to be very expensive, and it won’t be effective,” James Wilson, deputy director of the group Detention Action, told VOA. “The U.K. is a signatory to the refugee convention. We have a legal and moral obligation to be assessing any asylum claims to the U.K. in the U.K.”

Wilson said the government should provide safe routes for refugees to reach Britain. “A humanitarian visa system, so that those who have reached France and are looking to claim asylum in the U.K. and having some grounds for doing that would be able to apply for a visa to come to the U.K. to have their asylum claim considered. If we put that kind of scheme in place, which we think is entirely practicable, it would end the need for Channel crossings,” he told VOA.

Patel says Rwanda is “a safe and secure country with the respect for the rule of law and clearly a range of institutions that evolved and developed over time.” She also said Rwanda already has resettled almost 130,000 refugees from multiple countries.

UN objections

Britain says asylum-seekers should apply for refugee status in the first safe country they arrive in, including France. The United Nations disagrees. “There’s nothing in international law that says you have to ask in the first country you encounter,” said Larry Bottinick, a senior legal officer for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

“UNHCR understands the frustration of the U.K. government on that and is not in favor of Channel crossing, of course. We think there’s more effective ways and more humane ways to address this,” Bottinick told The Associated Press.

Australia lessons

Until 2014, Australia sent thousands of migrants to offshore processing centers in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific island of Nauru. Many asylum-seekers are still being held in these facilities. The policy failed to deter migrants, says analyst Madeline Gleeson, a senior research fellow at the Kaldor Center for International Refugee Law at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

“In the first year of offshore processing being in place, more people arrived in Australia by boat than at any other time in recorded history of asylum-seekers arriving that way,” she said.

Gleeson says Britain has indicated that only some migrants will be sent to Rwanda, and they are likely to be single men.

“If that is the case, what you might find is that the next boats coming across the Channel belonged to those groups which are not going to go to Rwanda — so you might see increased numbers of women and children coming on that boat,” she said. “And the concern there is if those boats sink or if they run into trouble, you’re likely to have a much higher human toll if there are more women and children on the boat.

“There will be a cap on how many people can go to Rwanda. And so, the U.K. risks running into the problem we found here in Australia, which is very quickly — within 12 weeks of this policy starting — we had already maxed out the full capacity offshore,” Gleeson told VOA.

There are further concerns the migrants sent to Rwanda will simply try again to reach Britain, thereby fueling the human trafficking gangs that operate from Africa to Europe and on toward the English Channel.

Source: Voice of America

Cameroon’s energy ministry has said Western sanctions on Russia have driven up the cost of fuel imports and led to a fuel shortage. The lack of diesel fuels this week left hundreds of trucks taking goods to the neighboring Central African Republic and Chad stranded at the borders.

Cameroon says thousands of buses, trucks and cars have been stranded in the central African country for two weeks by diesel fuel shortages. The shortage has left them unable to deliver goods to Cameroon’s landlocked neighbors.

Brilliant Chaba, a 43-year-old truck driver, said his truck transporting computers imported by Chad’s government through Cameroon’s Douala seaport has been stuck in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde for three days because of lack of diesel fuel. He said he is not sure he will arrive in the Chadian capital, N’djamena, within a week as expected. Chaba said he is running short of money to settle parking fees for his truck, buy food and pay for his lodging in Yaounde.

Moise Vokeng, president of the Cameroon Professional Transporters Network, said transporters are surprised that the government of Cameroon has not been able to provide diesel in the country for close to two weeks. He said perishable goods are going bad on their way to Chad and the Central African Republic. He added that the government should immediately import fuel, or the economic consequences of a fuel shortage will be difficult to contain.

Cameroon says Western sanctions on Russia imposed because of its invasion of Ukraine have created the fuel shortage.

The sanctions hindered Cameroon’s trade with Russia, which normally supplies more than half of Cameroon’s gasoline imports.

The government has not revealed the extent of the fuel shortage, but said it will import the necessary quantities from Africa and Europe.

Simon Pierre Omgba Mbida, an international relations specialist at Cameroon’s External Relations Ministry, said most African countries will be victims of the war of influence between Moscow and European nations, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will have disastrous consequences on Africa’s economy. He said some European countries erroneously think that the 57 member states of the African Union and the 27 member states of the European Union should take common positions on topical issues affecting the world. He said each African state, like European nations, has its interests that guide decisions it takes.

The United Nations says since the start of the year, oil prices have gone up by more than 60% and natural gas and fertilizer prices have more than doubled because of Russia’s war on Ukraine. The U.N. says the war risks tipping up to 1.7 billion people, over one-fifth of humanity, into poverty, destitution and hunger.

Source: Voice of America

FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu highlighted the role of innovation and partnerships in achieving the Four Betters, on his first visit to South Africa as head of the UN agency.

The Director-General started the mission on 19 April by meeting Ambassador Francis Moloi, Chief Director at the Department of International Relations and Cooperation of South Africa (DIRCO). The two discussed deepening the partnership between FAO and South Africa for agrifood systems transformation.

He then met the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, Angela Thoko Didiza. Qu began by giving his condolences for the lives lost in recent flooding in South Africa.

The two discussed the role of innovation in advancing agrifood systems transformation in South Africa, and the country’s leading role in advancing transformation across the southern Africa sub-region through the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The Director General also shared with the Minister the One Country One Priority Product (OCOP) initiative, and discussed the opportunities it can provide to the country.

They also discussed exploring opportunities for furthering the collaboration between FAO and South Africa, and amplifying the partnership to achieve the Four Betters as set out in the FAO Strategic Framework 2022-31: better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life for all, leaving no one behind.

During the meeting, the Minister emphasized the country’s strong innovation ecosystem and the importance of digitalization in agriculture, including precision farming, GIS-based applications and mobile-based systems.

They also discussed FAO’s 1000 Digital Villages initiative and the potential for collaboration to provide digital services to farming communities.

Later in the day, the Director-General visited laboratories at the Vegetable, Industrial and Medicinal Plant (VIMP) Institute at the Agricultural Research Council, a leading scientific research institution in South Africa. He toured the facilities and met scientists and academics from a range of institutions and discussed possible areas of collaboration in economics, statistics, data, research development, and innovation for efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems. Research institutions and academia are key in providing science and evidence based innovative solutions that can help develop capacity and knowledge of smallholder farmers in South Africa and beyond.

On Wednesday, the Director-General met representatives of private sector organizations in South Africa, including the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (AgriBiz), the potato industry (Potato SA), and the South African Avocado Growers Association (SAAGA). The group discussed strategic partnerships for agrifood systems transformation. Strengthened collaboration between FAO and the private sector is instrumental to accelerating sustainable agrifood systems transformation.

The day concluded with a meeting with the Director-General of the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries of South Africa, Nomfundo Tshabalala. The two discussed how to strengthen cooperation between FAO and the Department in the areas of environmental management, conservation and protection.

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations