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IMMIGRATION

Danish ministers visit Rwanda but stay quiet on agreement

Denmark’s immigration minister Mattias Tesfaye and international development minister Flemming Møller Mortensen travelled to Rwanda this week to sign an agreement with the Rwandan government.

Danish ministers visit Rwanda but stay quiet on agreement
Immigration minister Mattias Tesfaye is one of two senior Danish government officials to take part in talks in Rwanda this week. Photo: Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix

The trip was not publicised by Copenhagen, but the ministers could be seen in photos tweeted by Rwanda’s foreign ministry.

Both Tesfaye and Mortensen have so far refused to comment on the details of the agreement, according to DR.

The Danish foreign ministry has, however, confirmed that the two countries have agreed to work more closely on asylum and migration, the broadcaster writes.

“This is not a case of a binding agreement, but a mutual framework for future partnership. The two governments will spend the coming period discussing concrete areas where the partnership can be strengthened,” the ministry wrote to DR.

The two Danish ministers have not given any comments to media in Denmark regarding the visit, which was scheduled to last four days, according to the ministry.

“We’re going to work together in different ways, and what’s going to happen next is to see together how we can start implementing what we have signed,” Mortensen said at a ceremony for the agreement, according to Rwandan newspaper The New Times.

The Rwandan media also writes that the agreement will “largely focus on promoting cooperation in political and migration issues”.

“This broad agreement will focus on global refugee issues, both in Rwanda and in other countries, including Denmark, and will return to other topics including investment, trade, sharing of climate change and technology,” Professor Manasseh Nshuti, Rwanda’s Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the East African Community, said according to The New Times.

Although the content of the agreement is unclear, Denmark’s Social Democratic government has a long-standing desire to establish a reception centre for refugees in a third country.

“The two Danish ministers refuse to speak to the Danish press. We can therefore not get confirmation that the two sides have discussed – or agreed – that Rwanda will in future accept some of Denmark’s asylum seekers,” DR’s Africa correspondent Søren Bendixen said to the broadcaster.

Rwanda in 2019 built a centre for asylum seekers stranded in Libya, but that centre has received a limited number of asylum seekers so far, DR reports based on UN data.

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CRIME

Germany mulls expulsions to Afghanistan after knife attack

Germany said Tuesday it was considering allowing deportations to Afghanistan, after an asylum seeker from the country injured five and killed a police officer in a knife attack.

Germany mulls expulsions to Afghanistan after knife attack

Officials had been carrying out an “intensive review for several months… to allow the deportation of serious criminals and dangerous individuals to Afghanistan”, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told journalists.

“It is clear to me that people who pose a potential threat to Germany’s security must be deported quickly,” Faeser said.

“That is why we are doing everything possible to find ways to deport criminals and dangerous people to both Syria and Afghanistan,” she said.

Deportations to Afghanistan from Germany have been completely stopped since the Taliban retook power in 2021.

But a debate over resuming expulsions has resurged after a 25-year-old Afghan was accused of attacking people with a knife at an anti-Islam rally in the western city of Mannheim on Friday.

A police officer, 29, died on Sunday after being repeatedly stabbed as he tried to intervene in the attack.

Five people taking part in a rally organised by Pax Europa, a campaign group against radical Islam, were also wounded.

Friday’s brutal attack has inflamed a public debate over immigration in the run up to European elections and prompted calls to expand efforts to expel criminals.

READ ALSO: Tensions high in Mannheim after knife attack claims life of policeman

The suspect, named in the media as Sulaiman Ataee, came to Germany as a refugee in March 2013, according to reports.

Ataee, who arrived in the country with his brother at the age of only 14, was initially refused asylum but was not deported because of his age, according to German daily Bild.

Ataee subsequently went to school in Germany, and married a German woman of Turkish origin in 2019, with whom he has two children, according to the Spiegel weekly.

Per the reports, Ataee was not seen by authorities as a risk and did not appear to neighbours at his home in Heppenheim as an extremist.

Anti-terrorism prosecutors on Monday took over the investigation into the incident, as they looked to establish a motive.

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