The Rwandan government has no plans to host migrants deported from the UK, regardless of changes made to the deal, claims the leader of an opposition party formed in exile.

“There is no intention or capacity in Rwanda to accommodate these people,” Etienne Mutabazi, secretary general of the Rwanda National Congress (RNC), told i. 

He also raised moral questions about the deal, claiming Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, had agreed to it to “fund his wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)”.

Rwanda denies it is involved in the conflict raging in the eastern DRC, but regional experts, surveillance and the UN increasingly say they have evidence of direct involvement of the country’s military, rather than just support for the rebel M23 group, which is fighting the Congolese government.

The DRC has twice referred the Rwandan army to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for human rights abuses and pillaging its resources in recent years. In 2022, United Nations experts found “direct intervention” by Rwandan forces and the EU urged Rwanda to “stop supporting″ M23 rebels in the DRC.

“They’re [the UK government] facilitating this war,” said Mr Mutabazi, questioning whether any British money would be used for “a few basic accommodations for virtual migrants that will never come”.

Rwanda has received an initial payment of £140m from the UK – a little more than its approximate £135m annual military budget – with the promise of more money to fund the accommodation and care of any deported individuals.

Britain plans to send thousands of asylum seekers to Rwanda to deter migrants from making the dangerous journey across the Channel from Europe in small boats.

Rwanda has said that currently it can only host 200 migrants from the UK in a pre-existing hotel.

“They both [the UK and Rwanda] know it’s illegitimate and a waste of taxpayers’ money,” Mr Mutabazi added, saying the deal reminds him of how companies would dump their “industrial waste in Africa, this is now how they’re treating human beings”.

Mr Kagame in January lamented being held accountable for refugees Rwanda hosts. “We cannot keep being host to refugees for which, later on, we are held accountable in some way, or even abused about,” he said of refugees from the neighbouring DRC.

The UK’s Supreme Court rejected the original Rwanda proposal primarily over concerns about the honouring of non-refoulement, the principle of not returning refugees to a country where they could come to harm. Mr Cleverly was in Rwanda to get assurances on this point and claims his modified deal will be sufficient to allay the concerns of the Supreme Court and come into force before the next general election.

The changes include a plan to establish a panel of judges from different countries with asylum expertise to adjudicate individual appeals. An independent committee will monitor Rwanda’s asylum system to enforce the treaty and ensure what happened to those sent by Israel does not occur again. 

After the Israel deal, an agreement was signed between Rwanda and Denmark for the transfer of asylum seekers to the African country, but it was not enacted as Denmark agreed to wait for an EU-wide deal. Negotiations with Germany and Austria have also taken place. Rwanda received money from the EU to take at-risk refugees from Libya in 2019.

In the years after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the new regime led by Mr Kagame followed the Hutu extremists, who perpetrated the genocide, into the DRC. At the time, it said it had the right to use foreign aid for this effort. Twenty-five years later, Mr Mutabazi believes the regime’s approach to money from Western governments remains the same.

As a representative of the RNC, an organisation formed in exile by those who have fled Rwanda, Mr Mutabazi rejects the alleged “hypocrisy” of the deal.

“How many Rwandan refugees are outside of the country who would like to go back?” asks Mr Mutabazi, who says he would like to return to his country, which he left in 1994 when the genocide occurred and Mr Kagame came to power, before officially becoming President until 2000. 

Mr Matabuzi says he draws some comfort from the comparatively brief tenure of UK leaders and is confident interest in sending migrants to Rwanda will wane, claiming it was a pet project of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

He suggested that although Labour are yet to say they will abandon the plan, they may be less willing to pursue it when it inevitably falls apart.

Neither the UK or Rwandan government responded to i‘s request for comment. The I