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Five deportees who resisted disembarking in Liberia this week were instead flown to Equatorial Guinea, marking an early complication in Washington’s plan to deport up to 1,200 third-country migrants to the West African nation.
Although Liberia agreed to accept an initial group of 20 deportees on Thursday, a Liberian official confirmed that only 15 people actually disembarked.
The remaining five migrants—three Cuban men, a Brazilian man, and a Cameroonian woman—refused to leave the aircraft in Monrovia.
Authorities initially informed the group that the plane would return them to the United States.
However, the flight instead travelled to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, where officials forced the five deportees off the aircraft against their will.
The U.S. government is currently holding the five individuals alongside more than 30 other third-country deportees at a decommissioned hotel in Malabo.
Rights organisations have heavily criticised these third-country removal agreements, citing poor conditions, inadequate medical care, and a lack of legal assistance for detainees who previously secured protection against repatriation to their home countries.
