RIO DE JANEIRO: The Brazilian government Tuesday said it will create a reception center for deported migrants from the United States following controversy over conditions on a recent deportation flight.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva gave the green light to establish a humanitarian reception post at Confins, a municipality in Minas Gerais state, Brazil’s Minister of Human Rights and Citizenship Macaé Evaristo told journalists in the capital Brasilia.
That decision was made because of the possibility that more flights will follow the arrival of an initial flight to Brazil under the new Trump administration with 88 deportees on board this weekend. That followed dozens of flights during the Biden administration.
Local media reported that government officials were disturbed by the fact that Brazilians were kept handcuffed after an unscheduled stop in the Amazon’s biggest city, Manaus, prompted by technical problems with the plane.
A Brazilian military plane brought them to their destination, the city of Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais, on Saturday afternoon.
The next day, Brazil’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it was seeking answers from Washington regarding the “degrading treatment” of nationals during the recent flight. It cited “the use of handcuffs and chains, the poor condition of the aircraft, with a broken air conditioning system, among other problems.”
The US Embassy declined to comment and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency didn’t respond to an email request for comment.
It was unclear whether the 88 Brazilian deportees were taken into custody during the tenure of President Donald Trump, who took office Jan. 20, or former President Joe Biden.
There have been almost four dozen deportation flights from the US to Brazil over the past three years. Brazil has no desire to interrupt them and held talks with the American charge d’affaires on Monday, according to a government source with knowledge of the matter. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
Brazil has permitted the use of handcuffs in exceptional circumstances, but not indiscriminately and there must be an evaluation of risk, the person said.
Authorities are looking into how many were handcuffed. There have been passenger reports that the plane’s air conditioning suffered problems, causing intense heat in the cabin, and they exited through the emergency door upon landing in Manaus.
Commenting on the humanitarian center, Evaristo said the objective was to “ensure that these passengers have good conditions for water, food and even temperature, which I think was the most damaging aspect” in the first flight.
“We don’t want to provoke the American government, but it’s essential that deported Brazilians are treated with dignity,” Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski said on Monday.
Brazil to set up deportee reception center after contentious flight from US
https://arab.news/y5s33
Brazil to set up deportee reception center after contentious flight from US
Neighbors of alleged Bondi gunmen shocked by deadly rampage
- Local media named the two suspected gunmen as father and son Sajid and Naveed Akram
SYDNEY: Like many people in Sydney, Glenn Nelson spent his Sunday evening watching television coverage of a deadly shooting on the city’s iconic Bondi Beach.
But stepping onto his front porch, flanked by neatly trimmed box hedges, he saw armed police cordoning off the street before raiding the house opposite — home of the two suspects who are alleged to have killed 15 people in Australia’s worst mass shooting in decades.
“I thought, ‘Okay, I’ll catch the rest in the morning,’ the next thing, the drama is out the front door,” he said in an interview on Monday, shortly after mowing his lawn.
Nelson and other neighbors said the family living across the street kept to themselves, but seemed like any other in the suburb of Bonnyrigg, a working-class, well-kept enclave with an ethnically diverse population around 36 km (22 miles) by road from Sydney’s central business district.
Local media named the two suspected gunmen as father and son Sajid and Naveed Akram.
Police have not named the suspects, but they said the older man, 50, was killed at the scene, taking the number of dead to 16, while his 24-year-old son was in a critical condition in hospital.
Police said the son was known to authorities and the father had a firearms license.
The Sydney Morning Herald spoke to a woman on Sunday evening who identified herself as the wife and mother of the suspects.
She said the two men had told her they were going on a fishing trip before heading to Bondi and opening fire on an event celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.
“I always see the man and the woman and the son,” said 66-year-old Lemanatua Fatu, who lives across the street.
“They are normal people.”
Until Sunday’s shooting, Bonnyrigg was an otherwise unremarkable neighborhood typical of Sydney’s sprawling Western suburbs.
It has significant Vietnamese and Chinese communities, along with many residents who were born in Iraq, Cambodia and Laos, according to government data.
The town center, a strip mall with a large adjoining car park, is flanked by a mosque, a Buddhist temple and several churches.
“It’s a quiet area, very quiet,” Fatu said. “And people mind their own business, doing their own thing — until now.”
Not much is currently known about the suspects’ backgrounds.
A Facebook post from an Arabic and Qur'an studies institute appearing to show one of the men was removed on Monday and no one answered the door at an address listed for it in the neighboring suburb of Heckenberg.
On Monday afternoon, as police took down their cordon, several people re-entered the house, covering their faces. They made no comment to the media and did not answer the door.
