'Absolutely bewildering': Australian refugee advocates take aim at UK-Rwanda asylum seeker deal

Australian refugee advocates have expressed their disappointment over the UK's deal with Rwanda, which will leave thousands of asylum seekers in offshore processing.

The UK's plan to process asylum seekers who come across the English Channel in Rwanda has been condemned by refugees and asylum seeker advocates. Source: Getty / Dan Kitwood

Refugees and asylum seeker advocates in Australia have strongly condemned the United Kingdom's deal to transfer asylum seekers arriving by boat to Rwanda.

It has been described as unworkable, inhumane, and a grim reflection of Australia's internationally criticised asylum seeker policy.

The UK last week announced it will pay Rwanda $212 million in an arrangement that will allow anyone who arrives illegally in 2022 to be sent to Rwanda where they will be processed and, if successful, will remain.

'They denied our life'

Thanush Selvarasa left his family behind in Sri Lanka to reach Australia, a country he saw as a land of hope and protection.

Instead, he was detained for six and a half years in an offshore processing centre on Manus Island.

He says he faced a harsh reality and fears it will be the future for many asylum seekers who arrive in the UK through the English Channel this year.

Sri Lankan Tamil refugee Thanush Selvarasa said offshore processing centres are not a good solution for people seeking asylum. Source: Supplied

"When we were in the offshore processing centre we did not receive anything from the government, we were already locked up inside the fence," he said.

"Day by day they denied our life in there, that's why we lost 13 innocent people on that island. This offshore processing centre is not a good solution for people seeking asylum and safety."

Mr Selvarasa was released from detention in January 2021. Now, he is a human rights activist for those seeking asylum in Australia and around the world.

His work has seen him address the British Parliament, speaking out about the trauma and terror he faced during his time in offshore detention.

For him, the UK government's decision to move asylum seekers offshore to Rwanda is devastating.

"They don't realise now how much this is going to affect people who are sent to the offshore processing centre in the future," Mr Selvarasa said.

"They don't realise now I am a victim of that policy. Still some of my friends in offshore processing centre attempt suicide."

'Vile people smugglers'

Concerns over immigration were a big factor in the 2016 Brexit vote, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been under pressure to deliver on his promise to "take back control" of the UK's borders

Mr Johnson says the plan will discourage people from making dangerous attempts to cross the English Channel, and put people-smuggling groups out of business.

"These vile people smugglers are abusing the vulnerable and turning the channel into a watery graveyard, filled with men, women, and children drowning in unseaworthy boats and suffocating in refrigerated lorries," Mr Johnson said last Thursday.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said his plan to process asylum seekers in Rwanda will discourage people smuggling. Source: AAP / Matt Dunham

"We must halt this appalling trade and defeat the people smugglers. That's why we're passing the nationality and borders bill which allows us for the first time to distinguish between people coming here legally and illegally."

But senior legal officer from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Larry Bottinick, says similar policies in the past have been unsuccessful.

"I worked in Israel before I came to the UK. They were sending - on a voluntary basis - Eritreans to Rwanda, Sudanese to Uganda and people moved on from Rwanda within a week," Mr Bottinick said.

"It doesn't deter smuggling. It promotes it."

Director of Advocacy at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Jana Favero, said the UK's decision is a dark stain on the country's history.

"There is absolutely no justification for offshore detention. The Australian government has tried it twice now and both times it has been an absolute policy failure," Ms Favero told SBS News.

"It is absolutely bewildering why another country would try to copy something which is such a financial and moral black hole."

The decision has also drawn criticism from the leader of the Anglican Church.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby made the unusually direct political intervention in his Easter Sunday sermon, saying there were some serious ethical questions around sending asylum seekers overseas.

"Subcontracting out our responsibilities, even to a country that seeks to do well, like Rwanda, is the opposite of the nature of God, who himself took responsibility for our failures."

When announcing the plan, Mr Johnson hailed Rwanda as one of the safest countries in the world, despite the UK government raising concern last year about the nation's human rights record.

Ms Favero says offshore processing is a system of re-traumatising those who are trying to flee violence and terror.

"What is so shocking about Rwanda is as recent as last year, the UK granted refugee status and asylum to people fleeing persecution in Rwanda. So what does that mean for someone who's fleeing from Rwanda in the future, they could then be sent back to their place of persecution?

"It really doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And it's only based on cruelty, and the ideology that people should not seek asylum by boat."

The British government's decision leaves many questions unanswered, including its final cost and how participants will be chosen.

The UK says children, and families with children, will not be sent to Rwanda.