UN urges Equatorial Guinea to halt plan to return deportees sent by US

United Nations human rights experts have issued a rare public appeal to Equatorial Guinea, urging the West African nation to halt plans to return people deported by the United States to their home countries, where they could face political violence, torture, and execution.

The statement, co-signed by a representative of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, increases diplomatic pressure on Equatorial Guinea — one of the world's most repressive regimes — to comply with international human rights standards and avoid deporting people to countries where they would be persecuted.

“States must ensure that no one is returned, directly or indirectly, to a situation where their life, liberty, or physical or mental integrity is at risk,” the experts said in a statement on Wednesday.

The Trump administration has reached agreements with dozens of countries to accept US deportees as part of the president's goal of “mass deportation.” The US paid Equatorial Guinea $7.5 million to accept third-country nationals who had been protected from being deported to their home countries where they would be persecuted.

The UN's public appeal came after several people deported by the US to Equatorial Guinea said security officials gave nine of them temporary travel documents called salvo-conductos and told them they would soon be deported to their home countries.

“Equatorial Guinea should never be considered a safe country for migrants or asylum seekers. It is a highly repressive authoritarian state,” said Tutu Alicante, director of the Equatorial Guinea human rights group Justice. “Vulnerable migrants are being moved to a country where they have no legal status, no family network, and no meaningful protection mechanisms.”

Esther, who arrived in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, a few weeks ago, said conditions at the hotel where she was being held were no different from a prison. She and other deportees were detained without soap, toothbrushes, or clean clothes.

“I cried. I struggled. I did everything,” she said in a phone call with the Guardian from the hotel room where she was detained. “I fought and fought. Now I have nothing left inside me.”

Esther is from another West African country. The Guardian is using a pseudonym for her and not naming her home country to protect her safety. She said she fled in 2024 after being arrested and tortured on the orders of government officials — first to South America, then migrated north through Mexico before reaching the US southern border. She spent 14 months at a US immigration detention center before a judge heard her case and granted her “withholding of removal” — a special immigration status that ensures she is not sent back to her home country where she faces violence.

She moved to live with her uncle in New York and complied with regular check-in requirements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), she said. During one such check-in, she was arrested, denied access to a lawyer, transferred to Louisiana, and eventually handcuffed and put on a plane to Equatorial Guinea. Officials repeatedly refused to tell her where she was being taken until she was on the plane and an airline employee announced the destination.

Since then, she has been detained in a hotel in Malabo, guarded by armed officials. She can only access the outside world through the hotel room window and through her mobile phone, which she kept even though US and Equatorial Guinea officials confiscated her travel documents and other belongings.

Lawyers were repeatedly prevented from giving her and other deportees phone chargers, soap, clean clothes, and sanitary pads. Eventually, she received a charger and pads, but she is still wearing the clothes she had on when she was arrested in the US. She has also been unable to receive medicine after catching the flu or treatment for the pain in her hands and ankles from being handcuffed for hours during the journey.

On Saturday, Esther said officials told her and at least eight others that they would be deported. “I know what awaits me if they send me to where they want. I will be locked up, I will go to prison,” she said. Two years ago, her father was arrested and disappeared, then she was arrested, beaten, and starved to the brink of death. Her mother, who begged officials to allow her to take Esther to the hospital, also arranged for her daughter to escape.

Lawyers from a coalition of legal and human rights nonprofits representing at least 28 people sent to Equatorial Guinea said these deportees had been protected under US immigration law or the International Convention Against Torture — meaning they had proven before an immigration judge that they are likely to face severe pain and suffering at the hands of their home government. Despite this, Equatorial Guinean officials have deported some of them, including a West African man persecuted for his sexual orientation. He is now in hiding, the lawyers said.

These secondary and tertiary deportations are becoming increasingly common. The Trump administration has reached agreements with at least 25 countries, including Panama, Costa Rica, Eswatini, and Cameroon, to accept third-country nationals from the US, according to a February report by Democratic senators on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Some countries, like El Salvador, agreed to detain deportees from the US; that is how over 250 Venezuelan nationals ended up in a notorious prison in El Salvador for four months last year. In other cases, foreign governments hold migrants in hotels or temporary accommodation before sending them home.

“The Trump administration is using every legal option to carry out the largest deportation campaign in history, exactly as President Trump promised,” a US Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the Guardian. The agency did not respond to detailed questions about the policy of deporting to third countries and why US officials refused to inform Esther and others of their destination before deportation.

The Trump administration was reinforced by a Supreme Court ruling last summer that cleared the way for the US government to send deportees to South Sudan. In many cases, deportees are sent to countries with troubling human rights records, civil conflict, or repressive leadership. Many of these agreements are made “in secret,” said Beatrice Njeri, Africa regional lawyer for the Global Strategic Litigation Council, which represents Esther and several other migrants sent to Equatorial Guinea.

“Our clients, like Esther, have been protected in the US, including survivors of female genital mutilation, women who have suffered various forms of sexual violence, LGBTQ+ people, and individuals facing political or religious persecution,” Njeri said. Instead of being protected, deportees have faced “prolonged inhumane detention” and subsequent journeys where they face severe danger.

“What we are seeing in Equatorial Guinea is not an isolated issue. It is an expansion of a system intentionally designed to outsource cruelty and erode protections for those seeking safety in the US,” said Bella Mosselmans, director of the Global Strategic Litigation Council. “These agreements are causing immense human suffering and blatantly violating international law. They must end.”

In September, the UN human rights office called on Ghana to stop returning migrants from the US to their home countries where they would be tortured. In Wednesday's statement, human rights experts from the UN and the African Commission said they were concerned about the Trump administration's tactics of deporting migrants, including asylum seekers, to third countries without safe long-term arrangements.

“We are also concerned that these developments appear to reflect a broader trend of migration outsourcing agreements involving the transfer of migrants, asylum seekers, and people in need of international protection to third countries, including African nations, without adequate human rights guarantees.”

For now, Esther said she survives by trying not to think about the future. She has been able to call her uncle and mother, who are panicked. “My mother says I am young, I have a life to live — that's why she helped me escape,” she said.

When they last parted, her mother thought she might never see her daughter again. Now she fears they will be reunited, “but she will see me as a dead body, to bury,” Esther said.