Rwanda ‘getting no money to host African migrants’
Rwanda is not getting money from the European Union (EU) to host African migrants leaving Libyan detention centres, the country’s minister for refugees says.
Germaine Kamayirese made the comments after the signing of an agreement between the government, the UN refugee agency and the African Union that will see the first group of 500 migrants, mainly from the Horn of Africa, arriving in the coming weeks.
“It is just a humanitarian action – any African should aim to do the same. I don’t agree with those who are saying that Rwanda has received any money from anyone,” she told journalists in the capital, Kigali, on Tuesday.
In recent years, the EU has reached agreements with some countries to keep migrants from reaching its shores.
In 2016, it struck a deal pledging to provide €6bn (£5.4bn; $6.6bn) in aid to Turkey to house Syrian refugees.
A similar deal was made in 2017 with Niger, where migrants from Libya are hosted as they wait to be processed, in return for the funding of development projects.
Four years ago, Rwanda reportedly signed a deal to resettle Israel’s unwanted African migrants – though it has never confirmed whether such an agreement existed.
