Rwanda seeks $100 million from U.K. over scrapped refugee agreement

Rwanda told a panel of international arbitrators that Britain still owes it 100 million pounds ($134 million) under a contentious refugee resettlement deal that Prime Minister Keir Starmer scrapped immediately after taking office in 2024.

2022 Rwanda-UK Deportation deal

The 2022 deal struck by Mr. Starmer’s predecessor, Rishi Sunak, involved sending migrants who arrive in the U.K. as stowaways or in boats to the East African country.
Under the 2022 deal, migrants were to be sent to Rwanda, where their asylum claims would be processed and, if successful, they would stay.
It included arrangements for payments to Rwanda to help cover costs.
Britain’s Supreme Court ruled that the policy was unlawful because Rwanda is not a safe third country for migrants sent there.

2024 Britain unilaterally scrapped the deal

But when Mr. Starmer took office, “the new Prime Minister declared the Rwanda scheme to be dead and buried on his first full day in office,” Mr. Ugirashebuja said.
The British government is urging the court to dismiss Rwanda’s claims, arguing that the countries agreed in November 2024 that Rwanda would forgo the payments.

International Arbitration

Rwanda set up an asylum appeals chamber, created ministerial and administrative structures and “prepared reception facilities for incoming refugees and incurred significant costs in doing so,” Rwanda’s Justice Minister and Attorney General Emmanuel Ugirashebuja told a hearing at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
The arbitration court is likely to take months or more to reach a decision after hearings this week.
Mr. Starmer’s Home Secretary at the time the deal was scrapped, Yvette Cooper, called it the “most shocking waste of taxpayer money I have ever seen.”
She estimated that the plan, which ran into legal challenges and was widely criticised by human rights groups, cost 700 million pounds in public funds.