African country seeks millions from UK over migrant deal fiasco

Rwanda spent heavily preparing for a scheme that Britain later abandoned

Rwanda informed a panel of international arbitrators on Wednesday it is seeking about £100 million ($127 million) from the UK following Britain’s decision to cancel a migrant deportation agreement.

Kigali had established an asylum appeals chamber, developed ministerial and administrative frameworks, and “prepared reception facilities for the incoming refugees and incurred significant costs in doing so,” Rwanda’s justice minister and attorney general, Emmanuel Ugirashebuja, told the hearing.

The Migration and Economic Development Partnership (MEDP) was originally announced in April 2022 under British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government, and involved a five-year agreement for illegal immigrants to be sent to Rwanda from the UK. 

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However, no flights took place and the scheme was suspended in June 2022 following intervention from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The scheme was also declared unlawful by the UK’s highest court, which deemed Rwanda unsafe for deportees.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government scrapped the scheme upon taking office in July 2024, with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper stating it had cost taxpayers £700 million. Starmer declared the plan “dead and buried,” asserting that it had “never served as a deterrent” to illegal immigration and would ultimately deport “less than 1%” of those arriving on small boats.

In November, Kigali filed a notice of arbitration with the Netherlands-based Permanent Court of Arbitration over the MEDP dispute.

READ MORE: Rwanda takes legal case against the UK

According to Rwanda, the UK has breached the agreement in multiple ways, including failures to honor agreed financial arrangements and “by refusing to make arrangements to resettle vulnerable refugees from Rwanda.”

“Rwanda regrets that it has been necessary to pursue these claims in arbitration, but faced with the United Kingdom’s intransigence on these issues, it has been left with no other choice,” it said in a statement.

In January, the East African country initiated arbitration proceedings, also claiming that the UK breached a provision of the agreement under which London had committed to accept vulnerable refugees from Rwanda.