Mbabane: In the small African kingdom of Eswatini, the arrival of five men deported from the United States under Washington’s aggressive anti-immigrant measures has sparked a rare wave of public dissent. The five, nationals of Vietnam, Laos, Yemen, Cuba, and Jamaica, were flown to Eswatini’s administrative capital of Mbabane on July 16 on a US military plane and incarcerated after US authorities labeled them “criminal illegal aliens.”
According to France24.com, the US Department of Homeland Security said the men were convicted of violent crimes “so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back.” Civic and rights groups are questioning whether more deportees from the United States will arrive and what rights the five detained men have. Public outrage at the lack of transparency led to 150 women protesting outside the US embassy in Mbabane on Friday.
The protest, organized by the Eswatini Women’s Movement, demanded the prisoners be returned to the United States and queried the legal basis Eswatini relied on to accept them. The five men are currently held in the Matsapha Correctional Centre, 30 kilometers south of Mbabane. The facility, known for holding political prisoners and overcrowding, has been undergoing renovations and expansions since 2018, reportedly funded by the United States as part of a program covering all 14 of the country’s penal centers.
Sources within the penitentiary administration said the men are being held in solitary confinement in a high-security section of the facility, with their requests to make phone calls being denied. The sources noted that the men have access to medical care and the same meals as the thousand other inmates, as well as a toilet, shower, and television in their cells.
Prime Minister Russell Dlamini has dismissed calls by lawmakers and from other quarters for the secrecy surrounding the agreement with Washington to be lifted. “Not every decision or agreement is supposed to be publicly shared,” he said. Eswatini is the second African country to receive such deportees from the United States, after South Sudan earlier this month accepted eight individuals.
The situation has sparked concerns about the potential implications for Eswatini, a country already grappling with its own challenges under the absolute monarchy of King Mswati III. The 57-year-old ruler has faced criticism for his lifestyle and accusations of human rights violations. US President Donald Trump has used the threat of high tariffs against other countries, such as Colombia, to coerce them to take in people deported from America.
Eswatini is currently facing a baseline US tariff of 10 percent—less than the 30 percent leveled at neighboring South Africa—which the government has said will negatively impact the economy. Trump has directed federal agencies to work hard on his campaign promise to expel millions of undocumented migrants from the United States. His government has turned to so-called third-country deportations in cases where the home nations of some of those targeted for removal refuse to accept them.
Rights experts have warned that the US deportations risk breaking international law by sending people to nations where they face the risk of torture, abduction, and other abuses.
