Sierra Leone will receive on Wednesday a first group of migrants deported from the United States, as President Donald Trump’s administration pushes ahead with expulsions of deportees to third countries.
The Sierra Leonean foreign minister said an initial charter flight carrying 25 migrants would arrive in the capital Freetown on Wednesday morning, under a deal for the country to take in up to 300 deportees of west African origin annually.
Sierra Leone joins a list of African countries that have struck similar deals with Washington: Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Rwanda and South Sudan.
“We are accepting the deportees because they are from west Africa and some have Sierra Leonean documentation obtained many years ago,” Foreign Minister Timothy Musa Kabba told AFP Tuesday.
Ninety-day stay
“They have a right to stay in the country for a period of 90 days and they can travel back home to their country of origin.”
The United States will provide $1.5 million “to support humanitarian and operational costs connected to the arrangement”, his ministry said.
African countries agreeing to take in irregular migrants from the United States typically get US funding in exchange.
Some, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, have agreed to take in deportees from other regions, such as Latin America.
