LONDON: Britain’s Prince Charles has called the government’s plan to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda “appalling,” a report said Saturday after it cleared a legal challenge.
The UK government intends to fly the first planeload of 31 claimants to Rwanda on Tuesday — shortly before Charles is due to represent his mother Queen Elizabeth II at a Commonwealth summit in Kigali.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson — who is also set to attend the summit — welcomed his government’s victory in Friday’s High Court hearing, although an appeal is due to be heard on Monday.
“We cannot allow people traffickers to put lives at risk and our world leading partnership will help break the business model of these ruthless criminals,” Johnson tweeted.
Charles, however, joined others including senior Christian clerics in denouncing the plan, and fears the issue could overshadow the Commonwealth summit on June 24-25, The Times reported.
“He said he was more than disappointed at the policy,” the newspaper quoted an unidentified source as saying.
“He said he thinks the government’s whole approach is appalling. It was clear he was not impressed with the government’s direction of travel,” the source added.
A spokesman for Charles declined to comment on private conversations, “except to restate that he remains politically neutral.”
“Matters of policy are decisions for government,” the spokesman added.
The government says the one-way flights will deter asylum claimants from entering Britain by illegal routes, and offer those who do try a new life in Rwanda instead.
More than 10,000 migrants have made the perilous sea journey from France to Britain so far this year, a huge increase on prior years.
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Prince Charles slams UK’s Rwanda plan
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Prince Charles slams UK’s Rwanda plan
Somalia warns millions face acute hunger due to drought
MOGADISHU: About 6.5 million people in Somalia face acute hunger due to drought, the government and the United Nations said on Tuesday, sounding the alarm days after the UN’s food agency warned that food aid could grind to a halt by April without new funding.
Somalia declared a national drought emergency in November after years of failed rains, and other countries in the region have also been hit.
More than a third of those facing acute malnutrition are children, Somalia’s government and the United Nations Somalia said in a joint statement. The crisis has forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes, with many crowding into camps in Mogadishu and other cities.
“The drought ... has deepened alarmingly, with soaring water prices, limited food supplies, dying livestock, and very little humanitarian funding,” George Conway, the UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, said in a statement.
Hawo Abdi said she lost two children to illness after the drought laid waste to her homeland in Somalia’s Bay region.
“When I saw that the suffering was getting worse, I fled my home and came to ... Mogadishu,” she told Reuters from her shelter on the outskirts of the capital.
Last week, the UN World Food Programme put the number of those facing acute hunger at 4.4 million, and said it had already cut back its assistance to just over 600,000 people from 2.2 million earlier this year.
It was not clear whether the new figure reflected a sharp increase in those at risk or different counting methods.
The government and United Nations figures tally with those also released on Tuesday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which sets the global standard for determining the severity of a food crisis.
While rainfall in the April to June season could offer some relief, some 5.5 million people were expected to remain in the crisis level or worse, with 1.6 million people in the emergency level, the statement said.
Abdiyo Ali was forced to abandon her farm in the Lower Shabelle region.
“Our farms were destroyed, our livestock died, and water sources became too far away. We have nothing left to bring with us,” Ali told Reuters last week while preparing her food in a displaced people’s camp outside Mogadishu.
Somalia declared a national drought emergency in November after years of failed rains, and other countries in the region have also been hit.
More than a third of those facing acute malnutrition are children, Somalia’s government and the United Nations Somalia said in a joint statement. The crisis has forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes, with many crowding into camps in Mogadishu and other cities.
“The drought ... has deepened alarmingly, with soaring water prices, limited food supplies, dying livestock, and very little humanitarian funding,” George Conway, the UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, said in a statement.
Hawo Abdi said she lost two children to illness after the drought laid waste to her homeland in Somalia’s Bay region.
“When I saw that the suffering was getting worse, I fled my home and came to ... Mogadishu,” she told Reuters from her shelter on the outskirts of the capital.
Last week, the UN World Food Programme put the number of those facing acute hunger at 4.4 million, and said it had already cut back its assistance to just over 600,000 people from 2.2 million earlier this year.
It was not clear whether the new figure reflected a sharp increase in those at risk or different counting methods.
The government and United Nations figures tally with those also released on Tuesday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which sets the global standard for determining the severity of a food crisis.
While rainfall in the April to June season could offer some relief, some 5.5 million people were expected to remain in the crisis level or worse, with 1.6 million people in the emergency level, the statement said.
Abdiyo Ali was forced to abandon her farm in the Lower Shabelle region.
“Our farms were destroyed, our livestock died, and water sources became too far away. We have nothing left to bring with us,” Ali told Reuters last week while preparing her food in a displaced people’s camp outside Mogadishu.
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