UK PM Cancels Migrant Deportation Plan, Rwanda Refuses To Return Compensation Of IDR 4.8 Billion

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer with his wife/PHOTO via Instagram @keirstarmer

JAKARTA - The Rwandan government has indicated they will not reimburse more than 300 million US dollars or the equivalent of the IDR 4.8 billion they have received from the UK since 2022 for an agreement to deport asylum seekers deemed to have arrived illegally in the UK to the East African country.

A Rwanda government spokesman said the migrant agreement with Britain did not cover a cluster on reimbursement after the newly elected British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would cancel the controversial agreement.

"In the agreement there was no clause regarding reimbursement. It was never stated that the money would be returned," said spokesman Alain Mukuralinda in a video uploaded by the state-owned Rwanda Broadcasting Agency reported by CNN, Wednesday, July 10.

"We have agreed. Both parties signed it, it became an international agreement, we started implementing it, then after that you want to leave, hopefully it will work," said Mukuralinda.

Britain has given Rwandaung240 million (approximately 307 million US dollars) as part of the deal, according to a fact sheet published by the British government in April this year.

Speaking at his first press conference as prime minister on Saturday last week, Starmer said he was "not ready to continue" a controversial deal to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, and called the scheme "wittle" and denied the bill served as a precautionary tool.

The controversial plan was first announced in April 2022 by the Conservative government at the time under Prime Minister Boris Johnson's leadership.

But the plan faces a range of political and legal challenges as lawmakers and activists seek to overturn the law on the basis of human rights.

After the bill passed in April this year, former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak claimed the plan was introduced to prevent migrants vulnerable to dangerous crossings and break the criminal gang business model that exploited them.