A lawyer representing 11 West African men deported by the United States to Ghana has said they were denied their rights and sent on to their home countries despite fearing persecution. The men were among a group of 14 West African nationals accepted by Ghana under a US deportation drive initiated by former President Donald Trump.
Oliver Barker-Vormawor, the lawyer, told a court hearing on Tuesday that most of the 11 men had already been deported onward from Ghana, despite eight claiming they could not legally be sent home due to the risk of torture, persecution, or inhumane treatment. 'This is precisely the injury we were trying to prevent,' he said, adding that the onward deportations rendered their lawsuit irrelevant.
Of the 11 men, six were sent to Togo and one released to a relative in Ghana, Barker-Vormawor said. The men had initially been held in dire conditions at a military camp after being deported from the US. A separate US lawsuit filed on 12 September on behalf of five migrants sent to Ghana alleged they were shackled on a plane from a Louisiana detention centre without being told their destination, and several were placed in straitjackets for 16 hours.
In a related case, Jamaican national Orville Etoria was repatriated from Eswatini to Jamaica on Sunday. Etoria, who served 24 years in a US prison for murder, had been deported to Eswatini in July alongside other former prisoners. Eswatini's government said Etoria returned voluntarily, supported by the International Organization for Migration, and was welcomed by his family. Jamaican Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith expressed pleasure at his return, urging respect for his privacy.
Lawyers for five men deported to Eswatini earlier said they had been denied access to their clients in a maximum security prison. Additionally, a Mexican national deported to South Sudan in July was returned to Mexico earlier this month.
