Six people deported by the United States to Liberia last week refused to leave their flight. They were diverted to Equatorial Guinea instead, according to a lawyer and a fellow passenger in contact with the group on Monday. The six are described as four Cuban men, one Brazilian man and one Cameroonian woman. They resisted disembarking in Monrovia on Thursday. Officials initially told them they would be flown back to the United States. The aircraft instead continued to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea’s capital. There, the six were made to leave the plane against their will after being diverted to Equatorial Guinea within hours of touching down in Liberia. A Honduran deportee who was also on the flight told Reuters the group refused to get off in Liberia. He said they feared for their safety in a country with no connection to any of them. The six were separated from the rest of the passengers once the aircraft landed in Monrovia, he added. Liberia had agreed to take in as many as 1,200 deportees under a new arrangement with Washington. A first group of 20 was expected on Thursday. Only 15 people stepped off in Monrovia, leaving six to be diverted to Equatorial Guinea once the aircraft reached Malabo. Meredyth Yoon, litigation director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice Atlanta, said the scene in Malabo was heartbreaking and chaotic. Some of the group arrived in chains and visible distress, she said. This included the Cameroonian woman and one of the Cuban men, who she said has a large abdominal growth that requires a colostomy bag to be drained regularly. There is no medical staff at the hotel where the newest arrivals are now held, Yoon added. They join roughly 40 others sent there earlier this year under the same programme. The latest group diverted to Equatorial Guinea now faces the same uncertainty over detention, medical care and eventual resettlement. Conditions at the facility have worsened in recent months, according to Yoon. Food is sometimes withheld, she said, and guards have been accused of threatening, beating and choking detainees. Rights groups say the treatment of deportees in Equatorial Guinea has drawn growing alarm from lawyers who struggle to secure access to the hotel. Most third country deportees had already won legal protection from removal to their own countries. US immigration judges found they risked torture or persecution there. Sending them onward to nations where they have never lived lets Washington carry out removals it otherwise could not complete, immigration lawyers say. The State Department said on Friday it remained committed to ending illegal and mass immigration and strengthening border security. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson defended the removals, saying anyone a judge has ruled has no right to remain in the country will be deported. Liberia’s information ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Equatorial Guinea’s government also did not respond. The arrangement that has produced a growing population of deportees in Equatorial Guinea is reported to be worth about 7.5 million dollars. President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has allowed a hotel owned by his family in Malabo to house the deportees. Lawyers and rights groups tracking the programme confirmed the arrangement. Most of those held there have no travel documents and no clear route out of the country. Rights advocates say the case of the six diverted deportees shows how fragile Washington’s wider removal strategy has become. More flights to Liberia and other African nations are expected in the coming weeks. For the six people diverted to Equatorial Guinea, there is still no timeline for release or resettlement.” Post Views: 76