JOHANNESBURG: US expulsions of detainees to African countries under “opaque deals,” some involving millions of dollars in financial assistance, violated global rights law and must be rejected, a rights watchdog said Tuesday.
Eswatini, Ghana, Rwanda and South Sudan have in recent months accepted US deportees as part of a scheme by President Donald Trump’s administration to expel undocumented migrants.
Human Rights Watch said a deal between the United States and the small African kingdom of Eswatini, which has not been made public, involved $5.1 million to build its border and migration management capacity.
In return, Eswatini agreed to accept up to 160 deportees, HRW said in a statement.
The kingdom in July accepted five nationals from Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Vietnam and Yemen who had been convicted of crimes in the United States.
It jailed them at its maximum security Matsapha Correctional Center, which is notorious for holding political prisoners and for overcrowding.
A 62-year-old Jamaican national, who had reportedly completed a sentence for murder in the United States, was sent to Jamaica at the weekend, a government spokesman said.
Lawyers and civil society groups in Eswatini have gone to court to challenge the legality of the detentions and demand the government make public the terms of its deal with Washington.
HRW said it had also seen the deal with Rwanda, which had reportedly agreed to accept up to 250 deportees in exchange for roughly $7.5 million in US financial support.
“The opaque deals that facilitate these transfers, at least some of which include US financial assistance, are part of a US policy approach that violates international human rights law and is designed to instrumentalize human suffering as a deterrent to migration,” HRW said.
It urged African governments to refuse to accept US deportees and to terminate deals already in effect.
“These agreements make African governments partners in the Trump administration’s horrifying violations of immigrants’ human rights,” said advocacy director Allan Ngari.
The countries involved should “disclose their terms, allow access to independent monitors, refrain from detaining any deportees absent a clear legal basis,” it said.
And they should ensure that none are returned to their home country if there is evidence that they could be harmed, HRW said.
Right group urges Africa nations to reject US deportee deals
https://arab.news/jn5jn
Right group urges Africa nations to reject US deportee deals
- Lawyers and civil society groups in Eswatini have gone to court to challenge the legality of the detentions
- HRW urged African governments to refuse to accept US deportees and to terminate deals already in effect
’Only a miracle can end this nightmare’: Eritreans fear new Ethiopia war
- Now the fractious Horn of Africa rivals have begun trading barbs and accusations of war-mongering once more
- It is extremely difficult to gather testimonies from Eritrea, where dissidents often disappear to prison
ADDIS ABABA: Tewolde has fought multiple times for Eritrea, one of the most closed societies on Earth, and is now praying another war is not about to break out with neighboring Ethiopia.
“If the war starts, many people will go to the front and, as before, many children will lose their fathers, mothers will lose their husbands, parents will lose their children,” said Tewolde, who is in his 40s and lives in the Eritrean capital Asmara.
He fought first in the late 1990s during Eritrea’s horrific border war with Ethiopia, and more recently during clashes against rebels in the Ethiopian region of Tigray.
Now the fractious Horn of Africa rivals have begun trading barbs and accusations of war-mongering once more.
“We’ve already experienced this (before) and we know the losses are severe,” said Tewolde, who gave a false name to protect his identity in a country regularly described by rights groups as the North Korea of Africa.
It is extremely difficult to gather testimonies from Eritrea, where dissidents often disappear to prison. To obtain a few words from Tewolde, AFP had to pass questions and answers through an intermediary.
- ‘Incessant aggression’ -
Eritrea, a country of around 3.5 million, has been ruled by President Isaias Afwerki since independence from Ethiopia in 1993 and ranks near the bottom of every rights indicator.
Civilians are conscripted into the army for life or forced into a national service program that the United Nations has compared to slavery.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for signing a long-awaited peace deal with Eritrea shortly after coming to power and, in darkly ironic fashion, the two sides joined forces in the brutal war against the Tigrayans from 2020 to 2022.
Eritrea was not pleased that Ethiopia sued for peace without its input and has accused its landlocked neighbor of planning to seize its port at Assab.
For its part, Ethiopia has lately complained that Eritrea has been “actively preparing” for renewed conflict.
Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedion Timothewos last month said that “Eritrean aggression and provocation is making further restraint more and more difficult.”
- ‘Fleeing en masse’ -
Mehari, an Eritrean in his 30s, fought in the Tigray war, where his army was accused of horrific war crimes.
“Young people are fleeing en masse to Ethiopia... and to Sudan to avoid a possible war,” he told AFP.
Another Eritrean, Luwan, left the country several years ago and now lives in an east African country, which she did not want to name for fear of reprisals against her family back home.
She says her family are terrified after a relative was summoned to a meeting and told to “prepare herself, her sons and daughters because she was told Abiy will start a war against her and the Eritrean people,” she said.
Some mothers at the meeting “still haven’t been informed about where their children are from the last war in Tigray, but still they are being asked to send their remaining children to the front,” Luwan added.
Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Ghebremeskel did not respond to a request for comment from AFP.
A former independence activist now in exile, researcher Mohamed Kheir Omer, said young people are split between their fear of conflict and of being overrun by Ethiopia, whose wartime atrocities are still in recent memory.
“We are torn between Isaias who does not care about his population, and Abiy who thinks only of his own legacy,” he said.
Luwan said she was desperate.
“Only a miracle can end this nightmare.”
