A Hopeless People 28 Years Ago is Offering New Hope for Desperate UK Migrants

 


Desperate migrants unable to live in their home countries and unwanted elsewhere will finally have closure to their plight thanks to the generosity of Rwanda and it’s people.

The timing of the ongoing migrant crisis between the UK and France is coincidentally happening as Rwanda commemorates the 28th anniversary of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.

Rwanda knows better what it means to be displaced. The people taking these dangerous journeys are not doing so out of fun. People are dying. Someone had to do something.

It's unthinkable that Rwanda should be looking on as such pain runs on television everyday.

Not to belittle the plight of these migrants, but they are lucky their situation is getting live news coverage on all the international broadcasters, not to forget millions of social media users. This coverage has helped spark immediate interventions.

It was not the case back in April 1994 here in Rwanda.

About 4,000 people had sought refuge at technical school ETO, believing that the UNAMIR troops would be able to protect them. There were members of the Interahamwe and Rwandan soldiers outside the school complex.

On 11th April, after the expatriates in ETO had been evacuated by French troops, the Belgian contingent at ETO left the school, leaving behind men, women and children. The killing machine got to work massacring nearly everyone.

The cases like one above were many. There are footages of international powers bringing military planes to ferry their nationals out of Rwanda. Some flights carried animals.

Within a few days, some 2,850 Americans and Europeans had been evacuated.

Nearly three decades later, the Rwandan government is not allowing an indifferent world to deter it’s choices. We have the obligation to protect everyone in danger and need.

There has been deliberate attempt by some selfish players to link Rwanda's help for migrants, to unfounded allegations about the country’s antiterrorism policies.

The UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, while announcing the new partnership with Rwanda this morning, dealt with these naysayers. While Johnson spoke in London, his Home Secretary Priti Patel was in Kigali to finalize the new migrant resettlement program.

“Rwanda is transformed,” he said, noting that what Rwanda is doing to host the migrants should be adopted as a “prototype” to unending global migration troubles.

The migrants from UK will be latest addition to Rwandan society, following up recently on those that have come in from Libyan camps.

Rwandan homes and communities don’t have much, yet they have welcomed hundreds of thousands of Congolese since 1996, and Burundians since at least 2013.

Today, walk into any government hospital or private clinic and you will very likely be treated by a Rwanda-trained Congolese doctor. Not just there. Enter any hair saloon and there will be a Congolese waiting to give you that haircut.

Burundians are also slowly integrating. They were given accommodations by strangers.

According to preliminary plans for the UK migrants, once they arrive, they will be given humane place to live because some would have come from nothing back in their home countries.

Once they have a home, they will be helped to find a long-term plan about their lives. Those that want to study, can go to school, so they have the skills that they could take anywhere in the world.

Rwanda has indicated that it would receive an “upfront investment” of £120million from the UK to help set up the necessary infrastructure to be beneficial to the migrants and people of Rwanda. The financing will “fund opportunities for Rwandans and migrants”, including secondary qualifications, vocational and skills training, language lessons, and higher education.

The point of this whole exercise, from Rwanda’s perspective, is to help. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be any different from the UN back in 1994, and the abandonment that followed.

Back then, governments couldn’t agree there was a genocide taking place in Rwanda. They debated the terminologies while thousands died.

That should never happened again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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