CAPE TOWN: A Cuban man deported by the United States to the African nation of Eswatini is on a hunger strike at a maximum-security prison having been held there for more than three months without being charged or having access to legal counsel under the Trump administration’s third-country program, his US-based lawyer said Wednesday.
Roberto Mosquera del Peral was one of five men sent to the small kingdom in southern Africa in mid-July as part of the expanding US deportation program to Africa, which has been criticized by rights groups and lawyers, who say deportees are being denied due process and exposed to rights abuses.
Mosquera’s lawyer, Alma David, said in a statement sent to The Associated Press that he had been on a hunger strike for a week, and there were serious concerns over his health.
“My client is arbitrarily detained, and now his life is on the line,” David said. “I urge the Eswatini Correctional Services to provide Mr. Mosquera’s family and me with an immediate update on his condition and to ensure that he is receiving adequate medical attention. I demand that Mr. Mosquera be permitted to meet with his lawyer in Eswatini.”
An Eswatini government spokesperson referred the AP, which requested comment, to a correctional services official, who didn’t immediately respond to calls and messages.
Mosquera was among a group of five men from Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Vietnam and Yemen deported to Eswatini, an absolute monarchy ruled by a king who is accused of clamping down on human rights. The Jamaican man was repatriated to his home country last month, but the others have been kept at the prison for more than three months, while an Eswatini-based lawyer has launched a case against the government demanding they be given access to legal counsel.
Civic groups in Eswatini have also taken authorities to court to challenge the legality of holding foreign nationals in prison without charge. Eswatini said that the men would be repatriated, but have given no timeframe for any other repatriations.
US authorities said they want to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Eswatini under the same program.
The men sent to Eswatini were criminals convicted of serious offenses, including murder and rape, and were in the US illegally, the US Department of Homeland Security said. It said that Mosquera had been convicted of murder and other charges and was a gang member.
The men’s lawyers said they had all completed their criminal sentences in the US, and are now being held illegally in Eswatini, where they haven’t been charged with any offense.
The US Department of Homeland Security has cast the third-country deportation program as a means to remove “illegal aliens” from American soil as part of US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, saying they have a choice to self-deport or be sent to a country like Eswatini.
The Trump administration has sent deportees to at least three other African nations — South Sudan, Rwanda and Ghana — since July under largely secretive agreements. It also has a deportation agreement with Uganda, although no deportations there have been announced.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said that it has seen documents that show that the US is paying African nations millions of dollars to accept deportees. It said that the US agreed to pay Eswatini $5.1 million to take up to 160 deportees and Rwanda $7.5 million to take up to 250 deportees.
Another 10 deportees were sent to Eswatini this month and are believed to be held at the same Matsapha Correctional Complex prison outside the administrative capital, Mbabane. Lawyers said that those men are from Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Cuba, Chad, Ethiopia and Congo.
Lawyers say the four men who arrived in Eswatini on a deportation flight in July haven’t been allowed to meet with an Eswatini lawyer representing them, and phone calls to their US-based attorneys are monitored by prison guards. They have expressed concern that they know little about the conditions in which their clients are being held.
“I demand that Mr. Mosquera be permitted to meet with his lawyer in Eswatini,” David said in her statement. “The fact that my client has been driven to such drastic action highlights that he and the other 13 men must be released from prison. The governments of the United States and Eswatini must take responsibility for the real human consequences of their deal.”
A Cuban man deported by the US to Africa is on a hunger strike in prison, his lawyer says
https://arab.news/29csb
A Cuban man deported by the US to Africa is on a hunger strike in prison, his lawyer says
- “My client is arbitrarily detained, and now his life is on the line,” David said
- Civic groups in Eswatini have also taken authorities to court to challenge the legality of holding foreign nationals in prison without charge
Greek coast guard search for 15 after migrant boat found adrift
- The two survivors reported that the vessel had become unstable due to bad weather and there was no means of getting shelter, food or water
ATHENS: Greek coast guard were on Monday searching for 15 people who fell into the water from a migrant boat that was found drifting off the coast of Crete with 17 bodies on board.
The 17 fatalities, all of them men, were discovered on Saturday on the craft, which was taking on water and partially deflated, some 26 nautical miles (48 kilometers) southwest of the island.
Post-mortem examinations were being carried out to determine how they died but Greek public television channel ERT suggested they may have suffered from hypothermia or dehydration.
A Greek coast guard spokeswoman told AFP that two survivors reported that “15 people fell in the water” after the motor cut out on Thursday, then the vessel drifted for two days.
At the time, Crete and much of the rest of Greece was battered by heavy rain and storms.
The two survivors reported that the vessel had become unstable due to bad weather and there was no means of getting shelter, food or water.
The vessel had 34 people on board and had left the Libyan port of Tobruk on Wednesday, the Greek port authorities said. Most of those who died came from Sudan and Egypt.
It was initially spotted by a Turkish-flagged cargo ship on Saturday, triggering a search that included ships and aircraft from the Greek coast guard and the European Union border agency Frontex.
Migrants have been trying to reach Crete from Libya for the last year, as a way of entering the European Union. But the Mediterranean crossing is perilous.
In Brussels, the EU’s 27 members on Monday backed a significant tightening of immigration policy, including the concept of returning failed asylum-seekers to “return hubs” outside the bloc.
The UN refugee agency said more than 16,770 asylum seekers in the EU have arrived on Crete since the start of the year — more than any other island in the Aegean Sea.
Greece’s conservative government has also toughened its migration policy, suspending asylum claims for three months, particularly those coming to Crete from Libya.
