Two men that the Trump administration expelled to Equatorial Guinea were bound, fitted with bags over their heads, beaten and pushed down a flight of stairs, all in plain view of other US deportees, according to witnesses and human rights lawyers.
The men – one from Egypt and one from Eritrea – were then taken to a prison. About 30 detainees from the US remain trapped at a hotel in the outskirts of the coastal city of Malabo after being deported from the US. Detainees have said they believe the men were beaten for telling the press and human rights advocates about the poor conditions and violence inside the hotel, and that they are haunted by flashbacks and terrified they will be retaliated against next.
Human rights advocates and experts have warned for months that conditions at the Hotel Bamy – a run-down establishment that has served as a detention center for US deportees – are dangerous.
The US has sent at least 66 people from different African countries, Cuba and Brazil to Equatorial Guinea, which has received $7.5m as part of a deal to cooperate with the US deportation program. The Trump administration has pursued dozens of similar deals with countries to take in immigrants that the US cannot deport directly to their home countries, where judges have deemed they would face torture or persecution. In the past, the US government allowed those people to live and work in the US indefinitely.