A voter casts her ballot at a polling station in Kigali during Rwanda’s presidential and parliamentary polls.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Millions of Rwandans were voting in presidential and parliamentary elections on July 15, with the African nation’s leader Paul Kagame widely expected to cruise to victory and extend his iron-fisted rule for another five years.

Rwanda’s de facto leader since the end of the 1994 genocide and President since 2000, Mr. Kagame faces only two challengers after several prominent critics were barred from standing.

University student Gatangaza Bwiza Nelly, among two million first-time voters, said she had “been waiting for this day anxiously.” “I believe that the results will be the same as the results in the previous election. It is quite obvious,” the 21-year-old said.

The lineup is a carbon copy of the last election in 2017, when Mr. Kagame obliterated his rivals with almost 99% of the vote, and there is little doubt about the outcome this year.

Frank Habineza, leader of the Democratic Green Party, and independent Philippe Mpayimana were the only two candidates approved to run against Mr. Kagame out of eight applicants.

With 65% of the population aged under 30, Mr. Kagame — who is running for a fourth term — is the only leader most Rwandans have ever known. The 66-year-old is credited with rebuilding a traumatised nation after Hutu extremists unleashed a genocide targeting Tutsis.

More than nine million Rwandans are registered to cast their ballot across 2,433 polling stations, with the presidential race being held at the same time as legislative elections for the first time.

A small landlocked African nation playing in the big league: with military might, image branding and political influence, Rwanda under President Paul Kagame has become a major strategic player with tentacles spread far and wide.

De facto leader since the 1994 genocide and running for a fourth term as President in elections on Monday, the iron-fisted Kagame has established a sphere of influence far outweighing Rwanda’s size to develop the country and entrench his own power base.

Unlike many other African nations, “Rwanda is pursuing a real foreign policy strategy”, says Paul-Simon Handy, East Africa director at the Institute for Security Studies.

This strategy is similar to “smart power”, says Mr. Handy, combining hard power – the use of military and economic means for influence – and soft power.

The Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) is one of the pillars of this policy, though its role is contradictory.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has for years accused its neighbour of fomenting instability in the east and supporting armed groups, including the Tutsi-led M23, deploying troops and allegedly seeking to plunder its mineral wealth.

A recent UN experts report said 3,000-4,000 Rwandan soldiers are fighting alongside M23 rebels and that Kigali had “de facto control” of the group’s operations.

Questioned repeatedly on the issue, Mr. Kagame has not explicitly denied the presence of Rwandan forces in DRC, instead pointing to the “persecution” of the Tutsi minority and the risk of instability on Rwanda’s border.

“By nature, Rwanda’s security posture has always been defensive, not offensive. We only act when trouble is brought on us,” he said this month.

Its murky role in the DRC has however cost Kigali some financial support from the West, which since 2012-2013 has cut development aid and investment.

‘Africa’s policeman’

At the same time, Mr. Kagame has established his Army as the “policeman of Africa”.

Since 2024, the RDF has taken part in numerous UN peacekeeping missions. With 5,894 men deployed as of March 31, Rwanda is the fourth largest contributor, with forces in South Sudan and the Central African Republic.

“By participating in and leading peacekeeping and unilateral military missions, Rwanda has significantly enhanced its global image and strategic relevance beyond its historical association with the 1994 genocide,” said Federico Donelli, assistant professor of international relations at the University of Trieste.

It also reaps a financial windfall. The UN pays contributors $1,428 per soldier per month, meaning Kigali receives more than $100 million a year.

The RDF has also been deployed under bilateral deals with, for example, CAR and Mozambique.

These military commitments are often accompanied by economic agreements, offering development opportunities for Rwanda, which does not have its own natural resources or industrial base, and is reliant on international funding.

In CAR, Rwandans enjoy privileged investment access to sectors such as mining, agriculture and construction, often led by Crystal Ventures, an investment firm owned by Kagame’s ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).

Diplomatic lever

These deals also represent a valuable diplomatic lever to ward off sanction threats over the DRC or its dismal human rights record.

“Rwanda has never hidden its threat to withdraw from peacekeeping operations if it were to be sanctioned,” Mr. Handy said.

“It has proven its effectiveness: DRC efforts to have Rwanda sanctioned for its support for the M23 were unsuccessful.”

Mr. Donelli said Kagame has an ability to read global dynamics. “He knows that Western actors are increasingly reluctant to get involved in African crises,” he added.

“In an increasingly chaotic regional context, he is using Rwanda’s role as a reliable partner in crises to reduce Western criticism and divert attention from domestic issues such as the lack of democratic development, centralisation of power and human rights concerns.”

Mr. Kagame is accused of authoritarian rule, muzzling the media and political opposition, while according to the World Bank, almost half the population lives on less than $2.15 a day.

But he has sought to burnish Rwanda’s image abroad — selling itself as an African flagship for new technology, a hub for conferences and major sporting events, and a leading ecotourism destination.

Sponsorship deals have seen “Visit Rwanda” emblazoned on the shirts of European football teams Arsenal, PSG and Bayern Munich.

Rwanda has also boosted its presence in global organisations.

In 2009, it became a member of the Commonwealth and hosted its 2022 summit, while a former Minister is head of the International Organisation of La Francophonie (French-speaking union), and another serves as deputy chair of the African Union Commission.

Mr. Handy says Rwanda’s “smart power” was illustrated by the controversial deal to take in asylum seekers deported from Britain.

Widely condemned by rights groups and blocked by the U.K. courts, the scheme has now been scrapped by Britain’s new government.

The Rwanda plan was one of the showcase policies of former Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to try to curb migrants from making dangerous English Channel crossings.. File.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on July 6 that he is scrapping a controversial Conservative policy to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda.

“The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started,” Mr. Starmer said in his first news conference. “It’s never acted as a deterrent. Almost the opposite.” The move was one of Mr. Starmer’s first acts in office, though it was widely expected. He had said during his campaign that he would ditch the plan that has cost hundreds of millions of dollars, but never taken flight.

Also read: Explained | Why has densely populated Rwanda agreed to the U.K.’s plan to deport migrants?

Mr. Starmer made the announcement after holding his first Cabinet meeting at 10 Downing St., the day after his Labour Party’s landslide victory overturned 14 years of Conservative rule.

The Rwanda plan was one of the showcase policies of former Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to try to curb migrants from making dangerous English Channel crossings.

But it was beset with challenges over human rights issues and never managed to deport a single person despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars in a pact with the east African nation.

Suella Braverman, a Conservative hard liner on immigration who is a possible contender to replace Mr. Sunak as party leader, was critical of Mr. Starmer’s anticipated plan to end the Rwanda deal.

“Years of hard work, acts of Parliament, millions of pounds been spent on a scheme which had it been delivered properly would have worked,” she said Saturday before he made the announcement.

London:

British authorities have started to detain migrants in preparation for them to be sent to Rwanda in the next nine to 11 weeks, the government said on Wednesday, laying the groundwork for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s flagship immigration policy.

A law to pave the way for sending asylum seekers to Rwanda if they arrived in Britain without permission was approved by parliament in April, and Sunak wants the first flights to take off in July.

More than 7,500 migrants have arrived in England on small boats from France so far this year, and the government says the policy will deter people from making dangerous journey across the Channel. Five people died trying to make the crossing last week.

Human rights charities and unions opposed to the policy are expected to launch fresh legal challenges to stop the flights from taking off after the UK Supreme Court declared the policy unlawful last year.

Images released by Britain’s interior ministry on Wednesday showed a man being put in a van by immigration enforcement officials, and another being led out of his house in handcuffs.

“Our dedicated enforcement teams are working at pace to swiftly detain those who have no right to be here so we can get flights off the ground,” interior minister James Cleverly said in a statement on Wednesday.

Care4Calais, a refugee charity, said the detentions had started on Monday.

A spokesperson said that the group’s helpline had received calls from “tens of people”, adding that they still did not know who would be earmarked for the first deportation flight, or when it would be attempted.

Britain sent its first asylum seeker to Rwanda under a voluntary scheme, The Sun Newspaper reported on Tuesday, a separate programme to the deportation policy.

“People are very frightened,” said Natasha Tsangarides, Associate Director of Advocacy at charity Freedom from Torture, saying the fear of being detained and sent to Rwanda would push some people to go underground and disengage with their support system.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Weymouth:

Asylum seekers housed on an accommodation barge on the coast of southern England say they are afraid of being sent to Rwanda, after a controversial proposal for deportation was approved.

“I’d rather die,” said one of them. But none of those living on the government-leased Bibby Stockholm knows whether they will be on the list.

“Everybody is talking about Rwanda on Bibby Stockholm,” said Atuib, a 23-year-old from Sudan, who crossed the Channel from northern France in a small boat last year.

Atuib has been staying for the last two weeks on the barge, which was moored in Portland harbour near the coastal resort of Weymouth, last year.

Designed to accommodate up to 500 asylum seekers, it has been controversial because of complaints about conditions on board.

Some have likened it to a prison. One man was found dead in a suspected suicide last December.

But for some there, those concerns appeared secondary on Tuesday, a day after UK lawmakers approved the government’s plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

“A friend called me from London to tell me the government will send every migrant like me to Rwanda,” said Atuib in Weymouth town centre.

But he said Rwanda would send him back to Sudan, from where his mother and sister fled conflict in the region of Darfur.

They are now in a refugee camp in neighbouring Chad, he added.

“Rwanda is not good. It’s not safe,” he told AFP.

‘I’d rather die’

Rwanda has dominated the debate about the Conservative government’s plans to curb irregular migration since deportation was first mooted in 2022.

But after the first flights that year were halted by a last-minute court injunction, the plan has been beset by legal challenges.

The UK Supreme Court in November last year ruled that it was illegal to deport migrants to Rwanda to have their asylum application processed.

Central to the judges’ ruling was that it was not a safe third country, and migrants were at risk of being sent elsewhere, including their own countries.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s proposal to get round the ruling by legislating that Rwanda is safe cleared parliament on Monday after months of debate.

He has said the first flights will take off in the next 10 to 12 weeks, and continue regularly over the summer months.

“I’d rather die than go to Rwanda,” said Martin, 28, from South Africa, who arrived in the UK more than a year ago and has been on the Bibby Stockholm for three months.

He did not say why he left South Africa, describing it as “too painful”.

But on the threat of being sent to Rwanda he was clear. “It’s better to kill me than take me to Rwanda,” he said.

“I don’t know if I will be sent to Rwanda or not but it’s not us who make the decision. But I know it can happen to me so I’m in fear, yes.”

Deterrent?

Fear and uncertainty is widespread among those living on the Bibby Stockholm, who leave the barge each day to come into the town centre.

Ahmed and Muhammed, two Afghans aged 26 and 27, don’t think they will selected. “But no one knows,” said Ahmed.

The pair arrived on student visas in 2022 and 2023 and had university scholarships. They then requested asylum and are awaiting a formal decision.

Sunak has said the policy will be a deterrent for anyone wanting to come to the UK outside regular channels, and break the people smuggling gangs behind the “small boats” crossings.

“If people know there is no place for them here, they won’t come, they’ll choose another country,” said Ahmed.

But Muhammed, who was a student of international law barely a few months ago and — like his friend — wants to continue his studies, doesn’t agree.

“It’s not going to work. They will not stop. They can challenge in court the decision. There will be many challenges,” he said before the pair headed to the library in Weymouth town centre.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during a press conference at Downing Street on April 22, 2024 in London, England.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on April 22 said he would push through a parliamentary vote on his government’s highly controversial Rwanda deportation legislation, as he promised that flights would begin taking asylum seekers to Rwanda in 10-12 weeks.

A record number — just under 5,000 — people had arrived in the U.K. on boats via the English Channel in the first quarter of this year according to U.K. Government data. Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh were the top five countries of origin for migrants arriving in boats in 2023.

“Parliament will sit there tonight — and vote — no matter how late it goes,” Mr. Sunak said a press conference in Downing Street on Monday. The House of Commons and Lords were scheduled to consider the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) bill on Monday.

The House of Lords — where Mr. Sunak’s Conservative party does not have a majority — had passed amendments last week to exempt Afghan asylum seekers who had helped British operations in Afghanistan and to establish an independent body to review Rwanda’s asylum system.

Also Read | British PM Rishi Sunak unveils 5-step illegal immigration clampdown

Immigration is a highly sensitive issue in the U.K., which is moving towards a general election in the second half of 2024. The initial plan to send illegal migrants to Rwanda was announced by the Boris Johnson Government in 2022. The policy has faced numerous legal challenges, including from the European Court of Human Rights (EHCR) and no flights to Rwanda have taken off to date.

The current version of the Rwanda bill declares that Rwanda is a safe country to send asylum seekers — a clause designed to circumvent a November 2023 U.K. Supreme Court ruling that said the policy (as it existed at the time) was unlawful.

The deportation process would kick off as soon as the vote was over, Mr. Sunak said, as he outlined some of the preparations — from courtrooms to security escorts and flight slots.

ALSO READ | The U.K.-Rwanda asylum plan explained

“The first flight will leave in 10-12 weeks,” the Prime Minister said, implying that the earlier declared spring deadline would not be met. He said multiple flights would take place through the summer (June-August) and beyond.

The Conservatives have focused on the role of people smuggling gangs as part of their messaging around the deportation bill and Mr. Sunak, on Monday, said the gangs were currently targeting vulnerable Vietnamese migrants, whose numbers had “increased tenfold” and who accounted for “almost all” the increase in migrant-carrying small boats arriving across the English Channel.

Mr. Sunak’s party has trailed the opposition Labour Party in polls for some time and stopping the boat crossings has been one of the Prime Minister’s pledges. On Monday, he accused Labour of not having a plan to prevent boat crossings and was “resigned to the idea that you will never fully solve this problem”.

Kigali:

Rwandans will on Sunday mark 30 years since a genocide orchestrated by Hutu extremists tore apart their country, as neighbours turned on each other in one of the bloodiest massacres of the 20th century.

The killing spree, which lasted 100 days before the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebel militia took Kigali in July 1994, claimed the lives of around 800,000 people, largely Tutsis but also moderate Hutus.

The tiny nation has since found its footing under the iron-fisted rule of President Paul Kagame, who led the RPF, but the scars of the violence remain, leaving a trail of destruction across Africa’s Great Lakes region.

In keeping with tradition, April 7 — the day Hutu militias unleashed the carnage in 1994 — will be marked by Kagame lighting a remembrance flame at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where more than 250,000 victims are believed to be buried.

Kagame will place wreaths on the mass graves, flanked by foreign dignitaries including former US president Bill Clinton, who had called the genocide the biggest failure of his administration.

The international community’s failure to intervene has been a cause of lingering shame, with French President Emmanuel Macron expected to release a message on Sunday saying that France and its Western and African allies “could have stopped” the bloodshed but lacked the will to do so.

Kagame is also expected to give a speech at a 10,000-seat arena in the capital, where Rwandans will later hold a candlelight vigil for those killed in the slaughter.

Week of national mourning

Sunday’s events mark the start of a week of national mourning, with Rwanda effectively coming to a standstill and national flags flown at half-mast.

Music will not be allowed in public places or on the radio, while sports events and movies are banned from TV broadcasts, unless connected to what has been dubbed “Kwibuka (Remembrance) 30”.

The United Nations and the African Union will also hold remembrance ceremonies.

Karel Kovanda, a former Czech diplomat who was the first UN ambassador to publicly call the events of 1994 a genocide, nearly a month after the killings began, said the massacres should never be forgotten.

“The page cannot be turned,” he told AFP in an interview in Kigali, urging efforts to ensure that “the genocide (doesn’t) slip into oblivion”.

The assassination of Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana on the night of April 6, when his plane was shot down over Kigali, triggered the rampage by Hutu extremists and the “Interahamwe” militia.

Their victims were shot, beaten or hacked to death in killings fuelled by vicious anti-Tutsi propaganda broadcast on TV and radio. At least 250,000 women were raped, according to UN figures.

Each year new mass graves are uncovered around the country.

In 2002, Rwanda set up community tribunals where victims heard “confessions” from those who had persecuted them, although rights watchdogs said the system also resulted in miscarriages of justice.

Today, Rwandan ID cards do not mention whether a person is Hutu or Tutsi.

Secondary school students learn about the genocide as part of a tightly controlled curriculum.

The country is home to over 200 memorials to the genocide, four of which were added to UNESCO’s World Heritage list last year.

Fleeing justice

According to Rwanda, hundreds of genocide suspects remain at large, including in neighbouring nations such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.

Only 28 have been extradited to Rwanda from around the world.

France, one of the top destinations for Rwandans fleeing justice at home, has tried and convicted half a dozen people over their involvement in the killings.

The French government had been a long-standing backer of Habyarimana’s regime, leading to decades of tensions between the two countries.

In 2021, Macron acknowledged France’s role in the genocide and its refusal to heed warnings of looming massacres, but stopped short of an official apology.

Ahead of the 30th anniversary, there were renewed calls from rights watchdogs for remaining genocide suspects to be held to account.

“I urge states everywhere to redouble their efforts to bring all surviving suspected perpetrators to justice — including through universal jurisdiction — and to combat hate speech and incitement to commit genocide,” UN human rights chief Volker Turk said on Friday.

 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Kigali, Rwanda:

A man has been arrested in Rwanda after the discovery of more than 10 bodies buried in a hole in the kitchen of his home in the capital Kigali, police and media reports said Wednesday. Police said the 34-year-old suspected serial killer had lured his victims from bars to his rented home in a Kigali suburb.

Local media said more than 10 bodies had been found, and a source in the Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) told AFP on condition of anonymity that the number of victims so far was 14.

RIB spokesman Thierry Murangira declined to confirm a figure, telling AFP that “the final number will be determined by forensic investigations”.

The suspect had initially been arrested in July on suspicion of robbery and rape among other offences but was granted bail due to a lack of evidence, he said, quoted by local media.

Investigations continued however and he was rearrested on Tuesday and his home searched, leading to the discovery of the bodies dumped in a pit he had dug in his kitchen.

“The suspect confessed that he learned to kill from watching famous serial killers. He dissolved some of his victims in acid,” the RIB source said.

“He would study his victims before stalking them and usually went for those that are most likely not to have close family or friends to look out for them.”

Murangira said the suspect had confessed during interrogation to the killings and that preliminary investigations had found the victims were both male and female.

“He operated by luring his victims, mostly prostitutes, to his home where he would rob them of their phones and belongings and then strangled them to death and buried them in a hole dug in the kitchen of his rented house,” he added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)