ABUJA: The masked police officers burst into Ahmed Soliman’s hotel room in Equatorial Guinea and dragged him and two dozen other US deportees outside, guns drawn, to deliver a message: go home.
“I have police officers yanking on my neck, trying to throw me on the ground, I have officers elbowing me in my back,” Soliman, 30, told AFP of the incident, which occurred two weeks ago.
“Machine guns pointed at our faces, all this just so that they can tell us they’re tired of us here in this country,” he recalled, saying he and four others were handcuffed and hit by police, in an incident confirmed by two other deportees.
Authorities are ratcheting up pressure on deportees held at the hotel, which has become a dumping ground for expelled US immigrants, including Soliman, who arrived in April.
The deportees say they’re facing verbal and physical abuse from police, meagre rations and constantly being pushed to return home.
