Rwanda: refugee plan excoriated

Christian leaders have condemned the government’s plans to send illegal asylum seekers 4,500 miles away to Rwanda for processing as unethical.

The announcement of the proposals followed the reaching of a ‘migration and economic development partnership’ between the British and Rwandan governments, costing a reported £21m. Critics have called it ‘state-sponsored people-trafficking’.

In his Easter sermon, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said the plan raised serious ethical questions; and that it amounted to ‘sub-contracting our responsibilities’ and was ‘the opposite of the nature of God’.