KIGALI – Rwanda has announced it recently received the first group of deportees from the United States of America, becoming the most recent country to accept migrants under agreements with the Donald Trump administration. 

Trump has made a priority of deporting migrants , including through controversial arrangements to send people to third countries, which have so far included El Salvador, Eswatini, and South Sudan. 

“The first group of seven vetted migrants arrived in Rwanda in mid- August… Three of the individuals have expressed a desire to return to their home countries, while four opted to stay and rebuild their lives in Rwanda,” government spokesperson Yolande Makolo told AFP. 

The authorities offered no information on the nationalities of the seven deportees. 

Rwanda said on 5 August it would accept up to 250 migrants from the United States, stating that it would have “the ability to approve each individual proposed for resettlement”. 

The first arrivals are “accommodated by an international organisation with visits by the International Organisation on Migration (IOM) and Rwandan social services,” Makolo said. 

An IOM spokesperson confirmed they had visited the newly arrived migrants to “assess their basic needs” without giving further details. 

Rwanda signed a lucrative deal in 2022 to accept unwanted migrants from Britain, only for the agreement to be scrapped when the British government changed hands last year. 

Kigali had agreed to the new scheme with Washington because “nearly every Rwandan family has experienced the hardships of displacement”, Makolo said earlier this month. 

Those who arrive in Rwanda will be provided with training, healthcare, and accommodation, she added. However, a Rwandan activist, who requested anonymity due to the country’s long-standing pressure on dissent, said the deal ultimately came down to money and political influence. 

“Accepting these deportees also gives Rwanda an advantage in the ongoing peace negotiations regarding the conflict in DRC,” they told AFP. The Democratic Republic of Congo is currently holding peace talks with the Rwanda-backed M23 militia, which launched a sweeping offensive earlier this year and seized swathes of the country’s east. 

The talks resumed in Qatar on Tuesday to monitor the ceasefire, alongside an exchange of prisoners and detainees, Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said. 

The Trump administration has defended third-country deportations as necessary, since the home nations sometimes refuse to accept them. 

Rights experts have warned the arrangements risk breaking international law by sending people to nations where they face the risk of torture, abduction and other abuses. 

Washington is currently seeking to send a Salvadoran man named Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to Uganda. He was wrongly deported to El Salvador in March and alleges torture in prison there before being returned to the United States. 

It has also sent convicted criminals to South Sudan, Eswatini and El Salvador. Rwanda, home to 13 million people in Africa’s Great Lakes region, claims to be one of the most stable countries on the continent and has drawn praise for its modern infrastructure. 

But president Paul Kagame’s government is often accused of rampant human rights violations, crushing political dissent and press freedoms, and the migrant agreement with Britain was criticised by rights groups. 

-Nampa/AFP