The governments of Rwanda and Uganda on Friday said they have not struck any deal to take in African migrants from Israel under a scheme condemned by rights groups.
Israel has said on Wednesday it would pay thousands of African migrants living illegally in the country to go home or to “third countries,” threatening them with imprisonment if they are caught at the end of March.
The Israeli government did not say where the refugees should go.
“Rwanda has no deal whatsoever with Israel to host any African migrant from that country,” Rwanda’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Olivier Nduhungirehe, said.
His Ugandan counterpart, Okello Oryem, said the same thing.
“There is no written agreement or any form of agreement between the government of Uganda and Israeli government to accept refugees from Israel.
“Any suggestion to the contrary is fake news absolute rubbish,’’ Oryem said.
The vast majority of migrants in Israel came from Eritrea and Sudan and many say they fled war and persecution as well as economic hardship, but Israel treats them as economic migrants.
Rights groups have accused Israel of being slow to process African migrants’ asylum requests as a matter of policy and denying legitimate claims to the status.
