UK reportedly hopes to use Botswana as a deportation destination similar to Rwanda

By News 24.com

• The UK has reportedly pinned its hopes on Botswana and Ivory Coast to accept a migration deal similar to the one with Rwanda.
• Other African countries on the UK’s radar are Cape Verde, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo, Angola and Sierra Leone.
• Morocco, Tunisia, Namibia and The Gambia rejected the proposal, according to British media.

The United Kingdom’s push to send migrants to Rwanda this week again faced resistance from the House of Commons and House of Lords.

But Rwanda may not be the only destination on the cards anymore.

Both the Ivory Coast and Botswana are possible additional members of a “third-country asylum processing deal”, which would essentially offshore England’s problem with people who cross from France in small boats, British media reported.

Also on the list are Armenia and Costa Rica.

According to reports, should those countries decline to be paid to take asylum seekers flown in from the UK, it would approach Cape Verde, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo, Angola and Sierra Leone.

Leaked government documents noted that some African countries – Morocco, Tunisia, Namibia and The Gambia – had already outright rejected the advances by the UK.

None of the reported countries responded to enquiries by News24 on the matter.

The British government has yet to speak on the reports.

Stopping the boats

Two years ago, under Boris Johnson as prime minister, the UK and Rwanda signed the migration deal in an attempt to have migrants who cross the English Channel deported to the East African country.

Since then, the UK government has spent R5.6 billion attempting to get the project off the ground, arguing – and losing – in the highest courts.

A record 76 000 people have arrived in the UK, on small boats, in those two years.

According to statistics from the UK government, most arrivals from Africa were from Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Guinea and Morocco.

Virtually none came from southern Africa.