United Nations human rights experts have issued a rare public appeal to Equatorial Guinea, urging the central African nation to halt plans to return US deportees to their home countries, where they face political violence, torture, and death. The statement, co-signed by a representative of the African Commission on Human and People's Rights, presses one of the world's most repressive regimes to comply with international law and avoid refoulement, the expulsion of people to places where they face persecution.
The US government paid Equatorial Guinea $7.5m to accept third-country nationals who had been granted protection from removal to their homelands. Several deportees reported that security officials issued temporary travel documents to nine of them, informing them they would be deported imminently. Tutu Alicante, director of Equatorial Guinea Justice, said: "Equatorial Guinea should never be treated as a safe country for migrants or asylum seekers. This is a highly repressive authoritarian state."
One deportee, identified as Esther from an unnamed African country, described being held in a hotel in Malabo under prison-like conditions. She fled her home country in 2024 after being arrested and tortured by government officials, travelled through South America and Mexico to the US, where she was granted withholding of removal. Despite complying with check-in requirements, she was arrested, denied access to her lawyer, and put on a plane to Equatorial Guinea. She has been confined to a hotel room, guarded by armed officials, without soap, toothbrushes, or clean clothes.
Esther says she and at least eight others have been told they will be expelled. “I know what awaits me if they send me where they want to send me. I will be locked up, I will be in jail,” she said. Lawyers have been repeatedly blocked from delivering basic necessities. The UN experts emphasised: “States must ensure that no one is returned, directly or indirectly, to a situation where their life, freedom or physical or mental integrity would be in danger.”
