The government of Rwanda is seeking damages of £50 million from the UK following the cancellation of a migrant transfer deal between Rwanda and the UK on Monday. The controversy comes amidst growing human rights concerns and diplomatic tension over Rwanda’s military presence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Rwanda’s government spokesperson, Yolande Makolo, alleged the British government “asked Rwanda to quietly forego[ing] the payment based on the trust and good faith existing between our two nations.” Contrarily, the British government spokesperson told BBC that “Rwanda has waived any additional payments.”

The UK-Rwanda deal was a treaty between the UK and Rwanda where asylum seeker claims would be processed in and remain in Rwanda should their asylum claim be denied. According to the UK National Audit Office, the UK government would pay £370 million as funding to support the development of Rwanda and to compensate for the cost of relocating Rwandan individuals. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer ended the scheme after the Labour government won the general election, stating that the scheme was ineffective as a migration policy. The UN human rights experts welcomed the scheme as “an important step to ensure the right to asylum.”

The treaty was widely condemned for violating British human rights statutes. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) also considered the deal was a breach of the UK’s international law obligations. Specifically, concerns about the potential for refoulement were raised, where asylum seekers are subject to persecution risk in their country of transfer, as were concerns about the UK passing its responsibility for asylum processing onto a developing country which already bears a significant burden in protecting refugees.

Apart from suspending the UK-Rwanda deal, the British government has suspended foreign aid and limited inter-country trade in response to Rwandan intervention in an ongoing conflict in the Eastern DRC. Makolo described the suspension as “unjustified punitive measures.”

Makolo also raised an issue about Lord Collins making “inflammatory comments” on February 25 when answering a question in the Parliament. The Rwandan government interpreted it as insinuating a connection between the government and a terrorist attack on a church in the DRC. The Rwandan government promptly denied any connection between them and the terror group Allied Democratic Forces. Rwanda has requested a public correction and apology from the UK government.

According to local news outlet the New Times, Rwanda summoned the British High Commissioner in Kigali, Alison Thorpe, following the comment made by Lord Collins on February 27. The outlet also reported that Lord Collins wrote a letter to Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Olivier Mduhungirehe, on February 28 to retract his comments. By George Macauley | U. Toronto Faculty of Law, CA/Jurist

A screengrab of houses believed to belong to the National Police Service set on fire o Wednesday, March 5, 2025.

A group of angry youths in Majengo have set a police vehicle on fire following demonstrations that have been ongoing since last night. In videos and images seen by Kenyans.co.ke, a billowing cloud of fire was also seen emanating from some buildings although we could not establish whether they were administrative offices or police houses. 

According to reports, the protests erupted following the alleged fatal shooting of a young boy by a police officer on Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning, police were deployed to the area to calm the situation and lobbed tear gas at the protesting youths, but tensions remained high.

Reports from social justice centres have revealed that three more people have reportedly been injured as police officers continue efforts to disperse the rowdy crowds.

Unconfirmed reports indicate that an administrative office was also destroyed by the angry youths. 

Since the alleged murder took place last night, enraged residents have taken to the streets, demanding accountability from those responsible.

As is often the case, however, anti-riot police officers quickly intervened in an attempt to calm the crowds. Yet, the relentless youths have not faltered and continue to cause chaos in the Majengo area, with several neighbouring communities also affected by the riots.

Further reports indicate that additional law enforcement personnel are being deployed to the area to support their colleagues.

The riots come at a time when Kenya is already grappling with the effects of suspected extrajudicial killings in the region. 

In a statement on Tuesday, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) raised similar concerns over reports of police torture, abductions, and even murder in the ongoing Ondoa Jangili mission in Isiolo and Marsabit counties.

The commission therefore urged the Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA) and the National Police Service (NPS) to ensure that all police officers involved in the atrocities be charged in accordance with the law. By Maurine Kirambia, Kenyans.co.ke

Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah has called for the immediate suspension of the Social Health Authority (SHA), urging the Ministry of Health to take swift action on what he termed as glaring operational failures.

Omtatah also said SHA operations should be suspended until a thorough investigation is conducted following damning findings by the Auditor General.

“Instead of advancing universal healthcare, SHA has become a dysfunctional system that exploits Kenyans while enabling large-scale corruption,” Omtatah said on Wednesday.

“This is not reform; it is an elaborate fraud designed to enrich a few at the expense of millions. SHA is not just riddled with corruption — it is operationally collapsing.”

Omtatah emphasized that those responsible must be held accountable to prevent further plundering of public resources.

The legislator warned that continuing with the broken scheme would cause irreparable harm, betraying the trust of millions who deserve a transparent, accountable, and functional healthcare system — not a corruption cartel disguised as progress.

“Healthcare facilities are refusing service due to unpaid claims, patients are being forced to pay cash despite contributing, and out of 18 million registered Kenyans, only 4 million are actively contributing. This is a glaring sign of distrust and financial instability,” said Omtatah.

Audit findings

His remarks follow Auditor General Nancy Gathungu’s revelations of irregularities in the procurement of the technology system running SHA, urging Parliament to take decisive action against those responsible.

Appearing before the Senate Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday, Gathungu asserted that she had fulfilled her constitutional duty by exposing flaws in the tender process. 

“I have concluded that there was no effectiveness or lawfulness in the use of public resources on these matters. There is the aspect of governance and risk management, and I have been very clear that there were issues,” she said.

Her remarks came as senators criticized her reports for lacking specific recommendations for prosecution.

However, Gathungu pushed back, insisting that it was now Parliament’s role to ensure accountability.

Gathungu’s 2023-2024 audit report revealed significant legal violations in the Sh104 billion procurement of SHA’s technology system.

The report highlighted unbudgeted and non-competitive procurement, an undefined scope of work, and a lack of payment agreements.

It also flagged unfavourable contract clauses that cede control of the system to a private entity, barring government health agencies from accessing or modifying it. By Sharon Resian, Capital News

In the decades after the Second World War, activists across Africa began to shake the foundations of colonial rule. In Uganda, Senegal and the Congo, mass protests and strikes helped to popularise African nationalist ideas. In Algeria, Cameroon and Kenya, armed uprisings revealed the fragility of European control.

Independent states like Egypt, meanwhile, became vibrant political hubs for activists and exiles from colonised territories. These efforts were concentrated in the African Association – a radical new organisation which allowed nationalist movements to share resources, publicise their campaigns, and attract international support to the struggle against imperial rule.

Founded in 1955, the African Association was originally intended as a cultural organisation for African students in Cairo. With financial support from the Egyptian government, however, it quickly developed into a coordinating body for anticolonial activists from Angola to Zanzibar. From the Association’s headquarters in the affluent ward of Zamalek, campaigners could travel freely to international conferences, secure scholarships for African students and broadcast news about the liberation struggle to audiences in their home countries. For a generation of activists, learning to navigate this complex world of patronage offered new opportunities to escape the confines of colonial rule and win support for radical causes.

Transnational stories like these play a valuable role in the wider history of national liberation. Early studies of decolonisation tended to focus on high politics, reconstructing debates within colonial administrations in depth. Later scholarship situated anticolonialism within the interpretative framework of the Cold War, demonstrating how radical movements were influenced by powerful sponsors on both sides of the Iron Curtain. These state-centred approaches have value – but they also risk obscuring the significant roles of individual activists. In the past ten years, thankfully, new research has begun to address these silences. Studies of transnational organisations and individual activists have helped to complicate narratives about the end of empire, exploring how campaigners used personal and social networks to challenge colonial power.

The first delegations to the African Association came from equatorial Africa. After the British and French governments banned the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC), a group of activists led by Félix Moumié began looking for a headquarters in exile. Egypt was an attractive prospect – it was already home to nationalists and activists from across North Africa, and had given support to Algeria’s National Liberation Front in their own struggle against French colonialism. In July 1957, Moumié decided to create a permanent Cameroon Office at the African Association.

A few months later, the Ugandan nationalist John Kalekezi followed suit. Like many activists of his generation, Kalekezi was under routine colonial surveillance and would likely have been detained by British authorities if he travelled to Cairo by air. Instead, he decided to cross the Sudanese border in secret, travelling north through the Nile Valley and settling in Zamalek as the external representative of the Uganda National Congress (UNC).

Over the course of the 1960s, the African Association would host some twenty-four nationalist parties from East, Central and Southern Africa. Some delegates, like Joshua Nkomo of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union and Vusumzi Make of the Pan Africanist Congress, were already experienced activists. The majority of African Association members, however, were men in their twenties and thirties drawn from Cairo’s student population. In May 1958, for example, a group of Kenyans led by James Ochwata and Wera Ambitho followed John Kalekezi’s path through the Nile Valley, hoping to study in Europe. Upon arrival in Cairo, however, they decided to form a Kenya Office within the African Association.

In 1960, the group even began styling themselves as the ‘Foreign Bureau of the Kenya African National Union’ (KANU), despite the fact that they had no formal ties to the party. This flexibility with the truth allowed Kenya Office members to cast themselves as authentic representatives of the nationalist movement, and with some success. In April 1961, KANU officials formally recognised the ‘outspoken but effective’ leaders of the Kenya Office as an important part of the nationalist movement.

Living in Cairo allowed the ‘furious young men’ of the African Association – as they were dubbed by the Egyptian press – to overcome colonial restrictions on international travel. Egypt maintained a strict neutrality in the Cold War, and the Nasser government provided stipends and travel documents that allowed delegates to attend conferences and meetings on both sides of the Iron Curtain. ‘If I leave [Egypt] for a trip to the outer posts of the world’, explained Vusumzi Make in a 1962 interview, ‘when I return there will be no questions asked. This kind of freedom is most important in our struggle’. This mobility also opened new opportunities for education, and the African Association quickly became a vehicle for distributing scholarships for universities in East Germany, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.

Cairo also provided new opportunities for radical activists to speak to audiences across the world. Local printers like Mondiale Press published the African Association’s radical newsletters, like Uganda Renaissance and Zimbabwe Today, which were distributed in Cairo or smuggled into colonial territories. Zamalek was also an important diplomatic hub, allowing delegates to make statements to the news agencies and share information gathered by their personal networks across Africa. African Association members were also encouraged to use Radio Cairo’s powerful transmitters to produce creative broadcasts for audiences in their home countries. ‘Wake up, wake up: unite, oh black people’, sang Wera Ambitho on Cairo’s popular Swahili service. ‘Your star is rising – our freedom is coming as sure as the sun rises’.

The memoirs of the Zanzibari nationalist Suleiman Malik suggest that the structure of the African Association also encouraged cooperation between its various offices. Experienced delegates like John Kalekezi advised new colleagues on how to petition the Egyptian government for resources – and in return, activists passing through Cairo helped to supply news for anticolonial bulletins. The journalist Olabisi Ajala, who visited the African Association on his ambitious world tour, was impressed by its mess of offices and busy conference rooms, which left him with the impression of ‘a United Nations in miniature’.

The social bonds between activists, in turn, encouraged campaigns of solidarity that surpassed national borders. In July 1959, for example, the African Association organised a ‘Day of Afro-Asian Solidarity with Uganda’, with activists from across the organisation appearing on Radio Cairo to express their sympathies for the ‘persecution and humiliation’ of Ugandans under colonial rule. After the assassination of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in 1961, similarly, the organisation held a two-day vigil in Tahrir Square with speeches from its Kenyan, Rwandan and Somali delegates. 

At times, the Egyptian government appears to have used the African Association to its own ends. The Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser certainly had strategic reasons to provide African liberation movements with resources and support. As the memoirs of Egyptian officials reveal, many sought to use African nationalist movements to undermine their British and French rivals and to create new allies across the continent. Egyptian officials were a constant presence at the Zamalek headquarters – especially Mohamed Fayek, Nasser’s influential advisor on African Affairs. As Matteo Grilli has pointed out, officials like Fayek were responsible for assigning the broadcasting hours for each movement, allowing them to support cooperative offices and silence dissenters. A dramatic rift in the Kenya Office in the summer of 1959 also suggests that the Nasser government tried to exert control over nationalist groups. While Wera Ambitho’s followers stayed at the African Association, James Ochwata’s faction left for Moscow and Belgrade claiming that they objected to being ‘used as tools or stooges by the Egyptians’.

The relationship between African activists and the Egyptian state, however, was likely more complicated in practice. Accounts by several African Association delegates, including Suleiman Malik, insist that the Egyptian government gave them ‘complete independence’ to carry out their political work. The African Association produced material in a large variety of languages, from Luganda to Sesotho, and Egyptian officials would not always have been able to monitor the content directly. At times, the work of African nationalists in Cairo even clashed with the interests of the Egyptian state, threatening to undermine important diplomatic initiatives. Between and 1959 and 1961, for example, the Nasser government tried to improve its relationship with Britain – but these initiatives stalled when British colonial governments complained about the anticolonial work of African Association, threatening to oppose diplomatic talks if campaigners continued their radical rhetoric.

These anxieties were typical. The archives of British colonial territories demonstrate that imperial officials were consistently worried that transnational bodies like the African Association would allow radical nationalism to spread across Africa. In 1961, British officials in Kenya complained to London that the African Association was causing ‘infinite harm among [Kenyan] Africans’, accusing Ambitho’s broadcasts of ‘extreme scurrilousness’.

These protests were sometimes self-serving: colonial officials often reported on the threat of anticolonial publicity to secure extra funds for their own propaganda efforts. Since a landmark court case against the British government in 2012, however, a large number of previously-classified colonial intelligence files have been released to the public. These files include internal reports on the Uganda Office’s efforts to send students to Eastern European universities, and anxious accounts of the ‘wide distribution’ of ‘extremely offensive propaganda’ by the Kenya Office. In the wake of violent uprisings like the Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya, colonial officials in East Africa interpreted the popularity of the African Association as proof that British rule was becoming unsustainable.

Amongst African nationalists, however, attitudes were mixed. The influential KANU campaigner Oginga Odinga remembered the African Association as a ‘cross-roads of contact between the Afro-Asian countries’, praising the organisation in his memoirs for opening ‘a vital diplomatic front’ in the Kenyan nationalist movement. Oginga’s ally Joseph Murumbi, by contrast, believed that activists like Wera Ambitho were ‘quite unsuitable’ for political work, arguing that their time in Cairo had left them ‘quite out of touch with events in Kenya’.

The Zanzibari newspaper Mwongozi, meanwhile, published glowing reports of the activities of anticolonial nationalists in Cairo – not least because of the personal friendship between its editor Ali Muhsin and activists like Suleiman Malik. Muhsin’s rivals in the Afro-Shirazi Party, however, accused the organisation of perpetuating ‘Arab imperialism’ across East Africa, using party newspapers like Afrika Kwetu to warn their supporters about the ‘aims and objects’ of Cairo’s Swahili broadcasts.

The history of the African Association points to the multifaceted roles which transnational activists could play within the anticolonial movement. By relocating to Cairo, nationalist organisers were able to produce powerful publicity and attract international support for their movements. Social and personal ties between activists also helped to promote new forms of solidarity, allowing African Association members to present themselves as a united front against imperialism.

This activism was carried out under the supervision of the Egyptian government – a relationship which could alienate other nationalist activists and produce new political tensions. Ultimately, however, the activists of the African Association learned to navigate these constraints, producing radical work which connected leftist organisers while unsettling a nervous colonial state. History Workshop