A plane transporting nine West Africans deported by the United States (US) President Donald Trump’s administration arrived in Sierra Leone this Wednesday, part of Washington’s latest deal \u200bwith an African country aimed at accelerating removals.<\/p>\n
Foreign Minister Timothy Kabba \u200ctold Reuters\u00a0last week that Freetown had agreed to take in 300 West African migrants annually who were being deported by the US, with no more than 25 arriving each month.<\/p>\n
The deportees \u200bwho arrived on Wednesday included seven men and two women from Ghana, \u200bSenegal, Guinea and Nigeria, said Patrick Robin, head of Kenvah Solutions, \u2060the private contractor hired to house the deportees at two hotels near the \u200bairport.<\/p>\n
It was unclear how long the deportees would be able to stay in \u200bSierra Leone. A government Spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. “We will look after them in a dignified and comfortable way for up to two weeks,” Robin said, adding that \u200bin “exceptional circumstances” some could stay in the facilities for 30 days.<\/p>\n
Sierra Leone’s arrangement \u200bto accept only deportees from West African countries is similar to Ghana’s. Reuters\u00a0has \u200con how \u2060deportees sent to Ghana, Equatorial Guinea and elsewhere on the continent have then been forced to return to their home countries despite receiving court-ordered protection in the US meant to prevent that from happening.<\/p>\n
Robin said “most of” those who arrived in \u200bSierra Leone on Wednesday \u200bsaid they wanted \u2060to go home. However, a Reuters witness said at least one of the deportees appeared to resist getting off the \u200bflight on Wednesday before being persuaded to do so.<\/p>\n
It is \u200bnot clear \u2060what, if anything, Sierra Leone is getting in exchange for taking in the deportees.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":30640,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-34986","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Sierra Leone's arrangement \u200bto accept only deportees from West African countries is similar to Ghana's.","published_date":"","news_description":"Sierra Leone's arrangement \u200bto accept only deportees from West African countries is similar to Ghana's.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34987,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34986\/revisions\/34987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=34986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}