Rwanda will benefit from asylum seekers sent from UK because of 1994 genocide, says James Cleverly [Video]

Rwanda will benefit from asylum seekers sent from Britain because it is “slightly underpopulated” following the 1994 genocide, the home secretary has claimed.

His comments came just hours after parliament passed Rishi Sunak’s controversial Rwanda Bill, designed to give thousands a one-way ticket to the African country.

Speaking at an event in Rome, James Cleverly was asked why Rwanda had agreed to take asylum seekers from the UK.

As well as the millions of pounds the UK has paid the country’s government, Mr Cleverly also pointed to its tragic past.

In 1994, an estimated that more than 800,000 people were killed when members of the Tutsi ethnic group were massacred by Hutu militias.

Mr Cleverly said: “For a country of a fairly modest population, it lost a very significant number of its people. So Rwanda – …