Five migrants who refused to leave a US deportation aircraft in Liberia were reportedly flown to Equatorial Guinea, exposing an early challenge to President Donald Trump’s plan to send as many as 1,200 third-country deportees to the West African country.
Reuters reported that the group included three Cuban men, a Brazilian man and a Cameroonian woman.
It cited three people familiar with what happened, including a Honduran deportee aboard the aircraft. Liberia and Equatorial Guinea had not publicly confirmed the account at the time of reporting.
The aircraft arrived at Roberts International Airport near Monrovia on Thursday, August 20, with what Liberia had announced as the first group of 20 people received under its new deportation agreement with Washington.
Only 15 passengers disembarked, according to a Liberian official who spoke to Reuters anonymously because of the sensitivity of the matter. The other five reportedly refused to leave the aircraft.
