Sierra Leone receives 9 deportees from US at Freetown airport
Sierra Leone received nine deportees from the United States on Wednesday morning, when a first plane carrying West African migrants landed at the international airport just outside Freetown. Foreign Minister Timothy Musa Kabba said the group arrived under an arrangement limited to people from West African states.
The deportees came from Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea and Senegal, authorities said. Seven men and two women were taken from the airport in a minibus under police escort, after police, medics and government officials received them on the tarmac.
Timothy Musa Kabba on the deal
Kabba said, "We have received nine deportees this morning from the US". He also said, "We are taking in these deported people because they are from west Africa, and some of them hold Sierra Leonean residence permits obtained many years ago".
He said, "They have the right to stay in the country for 90 days and can then return to their country of origin". Sierra Leone has agreed to accept up to 300 people a year expelled by the United States, but only if they are nationals of ECOWAS member states.
Doris Bah at Freetown airport
Health ministry official Doris Bah said the deportees were "traumatised due to the months in chains during detention in the US". Bah also said, "Some of the deportees were arrested on the streets and their place of work while another was arrested while playing football in the US".
Bah said most of the deportees wanted to return to their home countries, and authorities said the group is expected to return to those countries within two weeks at the latest. The United States is providing $1.5 million to support the programme, covering humanitarian and operational costs linked to the agreement.
US deportations to Africa
Sierra Leone is the latest African country to receive people deported from the United States, after Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Ghana, Rwanda and South Sudan. For Sierra Leone, the immediate practical issue is not the arrival alone but the 90-day window now running for each deportee before return to a country of origin.
