Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: Rwanda has taken legal action against the United Kingdom’s refusal to disburse payments under a now-scrapped, controversial agreement for Kigali to receive deported asylum seekers, according to a Rwandan official and UK media reports.
Rwanda launched arbitral proceedings against the UK through the Haguebased Permanent Court of Arbitration on January 27. It is seeking 50 million pounds in compensation after the UK failed to formally terminate the controversial agreement about two years ago, The Telegraph newspaper reported. The programme to remove to East Africa some people who had arrived in the UK via small boats was agreed upon in a treaty between London and Kilgali. It was intended as a deterrent for those wanting to come to the UK in the same manner. However, just four volunteers ultimately arrived in Rwanda.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer scrapped the deal – brokered by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government in 2022 – when he took office in July 2024, declaring it “dead and buried”. London had already paid Kigali 240 million pounds ($330.9m) before the agreement was abandoned, with a further 50 million pounds ($68.9m) due in April.
