Authorities of the United Kingdom have flown out the first-ever asylum seeker to Kigali under a deportation deal with Rwanda, the UK media reported.
Earlier this week, the UK parliament passed the Rwanda deportation bill. Ahead of the bill's passage, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that the first deportation flights from the UK to Rwanda could begin in 10-12 weeks. He added that there would be multiple flights per month through the summer and beyond.
The report said on Tuesday that the unnamed migrant, whose bid to stay in the UK was rejected at the end of 2023, was flown out of the country on Monday evening. He was sent on a commercial flight to Rwanda and handed some 3,000 pounds ($3,746) to help him relocate under the deal, the report said.
The man of African origin voluntarily accepted "passage to a new life" in the central African nation, the newspaper reported. He is the first asylum seeker to be relocated by the UK government to a third country "in what ministers are hoping is the first of thousands," the report said.
On Sunday, British media reported that the UK interior ministry would launch mass detention of migrants across the United Kingdom on April 29, weeks ahead of schedule, for their further deportation to Rwanda.
Rwanda and the UK signed a migration agreement in 2022, under which people identified by the UK government as undocumented migrants or asylum seekers will be deported to Rwanda for processing, asylum and resettlement. The scheme has drawn criticism from human rights organizations, as well as numerous politicians and officials within the UK.
The first deportation flight was supposed to take place in June 2022 but never happened due to the intervention of the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled it unlawful. The UK government had to draft a new deal last year after the UK Supreme Court determined that the initial scheme did not guarantee the safety of asylum seekers.