5 August 2026
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On 12 June, a group of 17 people – among them Turks, Afghans and Iranians – were forcibly removed from the United States and flown to Bangui, in the Central African Republic (CAR), a country where they have no ties and whose language they do not speak. According to Third Country Deportation Watch, all but one of these people had been granted protection in the US from being forcibly returned to their home country. Yet being sent back to their country of origin is what they risked once arrived in Bangui, in breach of the principle of non-refoulement under international law.
More than 100 people have been put on planes by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials and sent to third countries in Africa over the past year. This inhumane, unlawful policy not only violates the due process guarantees that individuals are entitled to before removal, but it also exposes them to human rights violations in the country they are being transferred to.
The Central African Republic is one of 13 sub-Saharan African countries known to have signed a third-country removal agreement with the US – joining the ranks of Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Ghana, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Uganda. These agreements with third countries enable the US government to remove people it wants out of its territory – even, and including, those who are in the midst of their immigration proceedings and who have been granted legal protection preventing their return to their country of origin because of the risk of torture there.
