Home Secretary Suella Braverman to visit Rwanda as asylum deal remains mired in legal challenges
The home secretary is set to travel to Rwanda this weekend as the government’s deal to send asylum seekers to the country remains mired in legal challenges.
It is 11 months since the UK agreed the deal, which would see people who claimed asylum in Britain deported to the central African nation to have their application processed, and if successful be settled there.
No one has made the journey yet, after a flight was stopped at the eleventh hour in June last year following an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
In a statement released on Friday, Suella Braverman said the “UK-Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership is a ground-breaking approach that will act as a powerful deterrent against dangerous and illegal journeys such as small boat crossing”.
The plan was signed in April last year.
Throughout 2022, some 45,728 people crossed to the UK via the Channel – up 60% on the last year.
Ms Braverman said she was visiting Rwanda this weekend to “reinforce the government’s commitment to the partnership as part of our plan to stop the boats and discuss plans to operationalise our agreement shortly”.
Her visit comes as the government looks to ban people who arrive in the UK via non-standard routes from claiming asylum.
Ms Braverman is heading to Rwanda this weekend
Ms Braverman said earlier this week that they would be sent to countries like Rwanda.
As part of her itinerary this weekend, she will meet President Paul Kagame and foreign minister Vincent Biruta – who signed the agreement with Ms Braverman’s predecessor Priti Patel.
She said: “While in Rwanda, I will be visiting some of the initiatives supported by the partnership, from long-term accommodation sites to vocational training and education centres.”
The UK has already paid £120m to Rwanda as part of the deal, with the costs of processing and integrating people set to be provided once they depart.
“These initiatives will offer migrants the opportunity to build new lives in Rwanda,” the home secretary added.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
June 2022: Inside Rwanda’s migrant hostel
“The suggestion that Rwanda can only take 200 people is a completely false narrative peddled by critics who want to scrap the deal.
“Rwanda has the capacity to resettle many thousands of people, and can quickly stand up accommodation once flights begin.”
The 200 figure quoted was used by Rwandan government spokesperson Yolande Makolo when speaking to British journalists last year.
She clarified she was talking about the temporary accommodation available at the time, saying her government had the ability to “scale up very quickly” the number of people who could be admitted.
The figure has been used by Labour to attack the government’s claims that thousands of people could be sent to Rwanda.
Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts
“Within three to six months, the Rwandan government will ensure that migrants are housed and integrated into local communities,” Ms Braverman said.
“I am looking forward to seeing some of the new, modern housing developments being built in Kigali, which will be used to house some of those resettled in Rwanda.
“Rwanda is a safe, welcoming and thriving country and ground-breaking partnerships like this show how we can tackle illegal migration, support genuine refugees and break the criminal people smuggling gangs’ business model.”
The only flight set to head to Rwanda was grounded following a legal appeal
The plan would mean those sent to the country can apply for refugee status there and, if successful, would be given the right to remain in Rwanda, though not to return to the UK.
If unsuccessful, they could still be granted an immigration status or be removed to their country of origin.
Refugee charities called the policy “cruel and nasty” and said it would do nothing to deter people from travelling across the Channel on small boats.
New pictures show the moment of impact as an Israeli missile hit a Beirut apartment block and exploded.
The block was one of five buildings destroyed by airstrikes on Friday alone.
Israel launched airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in a fourth consecutive day of intense attacks.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press photographer captured a sequence of images showing an Israeli bomb approaching and hitting a multi-storey apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area.
Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed the close-up photos to determine what type of weapon was used.
“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s joint directed attack munition tail kit,” he told AP.
Pics: AP
Smoke covers a building that collapses following the strike. Pic: AP
Deadly strikes as bombardment stepped up
Israel stepped up its bombardment this week – an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy towards a ceasefire.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. It issued a warning on social media identifying buildings ahead of the strikes.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the same family in a home in Ain Qana in the southern province of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon’s state media said.
The report said a mother, father and their three children were killed but didn’t provide their ages.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province on Friday, also in south Lebanon, the report said.
Video footage also showed a building being struck and turning into a cloud of rubble and debris that billowed into Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
Residents check the site of the airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut. Pic: AP
More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – most of them since mid-September.
About 27% of those killed were women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon from September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel.
Friday’s strikes come as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The prime minister appeared to urge Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, said that prospects for a ceasefire with Lebanon were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire to deliver an early foreign policy win to his ally, US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
And in a post on X, the official DOGE account put out a call to arms for people to sign up and help “dismantle government bureaucracy”.
The post said: “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE.
“We don’t need more part-time idea generators.
“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”
Read more:
Who is in Trump’s top team?
Trump’s cabinet signals tough stance on China
Elon Musk speaking at an event held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.
Read more from Sky News:
Mass displacement in Gaza – people unsure where to go
Donald Trump picks vaccine sceptic as health secretary
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.
All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.
Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP
Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.
The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports7 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Environment1 year agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway