Sunday 12 June 2022 10:28 PM A gift shop where everything is free, a volleyball court SUE REID sees Rwandan ... trends now
The smiling, well-dressed staff at Rwanda’s Hope Hotel are waiting excitedly for their next – rather unusual – set of guests about to arrive from Britain.
This week, as long as the Government defeats various legal challenges, the visitors checking in at the smart reception desk will be migrants deported from the UK after illegally making their way across the Channel on dinghies.
‘We want to make them happy here,’ said 34-year-old Bakini Ismael, managing director of the 50-room establishment in Rwanda’s capital city Kigali yesterday. ‘We will welcome them as though they are paying guests on holiday in Africa.
‘Everything is ready for them. We will give out free cigarettes, and have built pretty gazebos in the garden where they can smoke, because we want them to have some pleasures in their life.’
Migrants will be served three meals a day cooked by a Rwandan chef in a smart white uniform
It will be a far cry from the British deportation centres where the 150 migrants on the deportation list ‘with no right to be in the UK’ are being held amid strict security after being arrested by immigration police.
Under a contentious deal between Britain and Rwanda, migrants who originate from countries including Somalia, the Sudan, Albania, Iran, Iraq, and Vietnam will be flown 4,000 miles on a privately chartered plane from London to the East African country where they will land on Wednesday morning. They will be bussed half an hour away from Kigali airport to the Hope Hotel, a well-appointed modern building, with a four-storey floor-to-ceiling atrium, set in rolling green lawns dotted with jacaranda trees and surrounded by box tree hedges.
There, the migrants will sleep in twin rooms with double beds covered by mosquito nets, colourful rugs on the floor and a set of slippers in the side tables.
At each bedside is an array of shower gels and soaps, and a list of phone numbers so they can call the hotel manager, find an interpreter, or get medical help at any time of the day or night on mobile phones handed to them on arrival.
In the hallway is a ‘suggestions’ box’ where they can make complaints if they don’t like the way they are being treated or find something wrong with the hotel service. There is also an array of newly installed washing machines for them to clean their clothes.
The British Government is to pay £60 a day for each migrant’s accommodation
But none of the guests will have to clear up or scrub dishes after they have eaten in the airy restaurant. There are staff to take care of that. The migrants will be served three meals a day cooked by a Rwandan chef in a smart white uniform, who is an expert in preparing halal dishes suitable for Muslims.
Their leisure time has been catered for too, with a volleyball pitch under construction at the side of the hotel. ‘We will offer them all they could wish for,’ said Mr Ismael.
That certainly has the ring of truth. New computers have been installed in special ‘business’ areas, so guests can keep in touch with family and friends in their home countries or back in the UK. There are two prayer rooms, and a gift shop where everything will be given away free: from cigarettes, to boxer shorts and white T-shirts.
‘We will do anything to make their stay a good one,’ added Mr Ismael, with a smile. The British Government is to pay £60 a day for each migrant’s accommodation under the £120million deal to ‘offshore’ the processing of asylum applications in Rwanda, which enjoys a Mediterranean-style climate and lush green countryside.
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