Last week, six individuals deported from the United States were reluctant to leave their plane in Liberia. Instead, they were sent to Equatorial Guinea, according to reports from a passenger aboard the flight and a lawyer acquainted with the group. This development stems from a third-country deportation accord signed with the Trump administration.

The U.S. has been implementing several secretive agreements to deport numerous individuals to various nations, advocates state. These accords often send asylum seekers to countries they originally fled from, lawyers explain.

The group refusing to disembark comprised four Cuban men, a Brazilian man, and a Cameroonian woman. One Honduran deportee aboard the flight shared that the group objected to disembarking in Liberia due to potential dangers, as Liberia was not their country. This person remained anonymous, fearing retaliation.

Other passengers disembarked in Liberia, fearing officers would forcibly remove them from the aircraft.

Meredyth Yoon, litigation director for Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, reported that those who resisted leaving the plane in Liberia were informed of a potential return to the U.S. However, they were unexpectedly transported to Malabo city in Equatorial Guinea instead. Yoon described the scene in Malabo as heartbreaking and chaotic. Among the group were those in chains and significant distress, including a Cameroonian woman and one Cuban man who has an abdominal growth and requires a colostomy bag, needing regular maintenance.

There is an absence of medical personnel at their current location in Equatorial Guinea, where the six individuals are kept with about 40 other deported migrants.

Recent conditions at the Bamy Hotel, where the migrants reside, have deteriorated, according to Yoon. Food is at times withheld, and guards have allegedly threatened, beaten, and choked some migrants. Equatorial Guinea’s government has not issued any comment on the situation.

The detention of asylum seekers at the hotel is part of a $7.5 million arrangement with the Trump administration, enabling Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo to use the family-owned hotel as a holding site.

Carlos Rodríguez López, a Cuban deportee sent to Equatorial Guinea, resided in Miami Gardens, Florida. His wife, Igrayne Ribot, learned unexpectedly of his deportation. After notification of his transfer, she contacted him via video call, revealing his presence in Africa. “I broke down,” she expressed in an interview, describing the situation as terrifying.