Change Of Mind Since Announcement Migrants Will Travel With One-Way Ticket To Rwanda

Refuges react back just beside a row of shabby, small shelters amid a hum from massive industrial units and passing lorries, Hamid Karimi, 34, sums it up: ‘I’m not going to the UK if afterwards I’m sent to Rwanda. I’m staying here. I’m not going to Rwanda. 

Some group of Iranian migrants in tents are taking in news of the UK’s Rwanda asylum plan and do not agree or support just by a dusty road on the industrial outskirts of Calais, 

The dozen men, mostly in their 20s and 30s, have spent months waiting for an opportunity to make the perilous crossing of the Channel to reach Britain. Some have already tried and failed. 

But since the announcement that migrants who succeed will be met with a one-way ticket to Rwanda, they have changed their minds.

Hamid Karimi, 34 from Iran, pictured, who is currently in Calais, said if the UK government starts transporting asylum seekers to Rwanda, he will remain in France

The government believes the number of migrants crossing the English Channel will decline once they realise they will be sent to Rwanda. 

Some other others in the group nod in agreement. Referring to the Prime Minister, one jokes: ‘Johnson go to Rwanda!’

Boris Johnson has said the scheme drawn up by Home Secretary Priti Patel will serve as a ‘very considerable deterrent’ – and that appears to be the case here. 

Announcing the Rwanda scheme on April 14, the PM said tens of thousands of asylum seekers who arrive in the UK by ‘irregular routes’, such as small boats or hiding in lorries, will be sent 4,000 miles to the African nation.

Arrivals will be processed and screened in the UK, with those deemed suitable flown to Rwanda on planes chartered by the Government. 

They will be then given accommodation and the opportunity to apply for asylum there – but cannot return to the UK. The change in tack from Hamid and his fellow Iranians is one adopted by many migrants in northern France since the announcement. 

A few miles away, near another camp in Calais, a group of mostly Sudanese men told of their fear of being beaten or even killed if they are sent to Rwanda. 

‘We came from Africa – we don’t want to go back,’ said Mohammed Noor, 34. ‘Nobody wants to go to Rwanda. If I go, I will finish my life. In Rwanda I won’t get a good life. I have come here for Europe and for the UK.’

Mohammed said Rwanda’s bloody history was a major deterrent. In the genocide of 1994, 800,000 people – mainly members of the minority Tutsi group – were killed in just three months. 

‘They have genocide, they have war,’ said Mohammed. ‘If you go to Rwanda, they will beat you and they will kill you maybe. 

‘I will wait to see if Parliament changes. Maybe the Government will change.’ 

Some migrants believe the scheme is merely a political ploy by the UK which will fail to materialise. 

The Government wants the first flights to leave next month. Channel crossings have continued in their hundreds since the announcement, but early indications show that numbers are in decline. On April 14, 562 crossed in small boats. On Tuesday, the figure was 263.