Cameroon Arrests Journalists Over ICE Deportations of 15 Migrants to Yaoundé

Cameroon authorities moved to suppress a case involving migrants expelled from the United States, after Joseph Fru Awah said, "La police nous a interpellés. Je ne peux pas parler," and four Cameroonian journalists were arrested for several hours in Yaoundé, with their equipment confiscated.

“An international coalition of lawyers has filed a lawsuit with a top African human rights body seeking to block deportations to Equatorial Guinea from the United States”

Al Jazeera

Fru Awah and the journalists were tied to an investigation into the detention of 15 African migrants expelled by U.S. immigration police (ICE) on two flights to Yaoundé on 15 January and 16 February.

Al Jazeera

Le Monde.fr said the New York Times revealed the arrival of nine migrants who had been "menottés et enchaînés dans un avion du département de la sécurité intérieure" from Alexandrie, en Virginie, where they were held in a migrant center "sans aucune information sur leur destination".

The TRT Afrika account said a new deportation flight landed in Yaoundé on Monday 16 February, and that the deportees had no link to Cameroon according to their lawyers, including Alma David in the United States and Joseph Awah Fru in Cameroon.

Rights lawyers filed a case against Equatorial Guinea before Africa’s top human rights body, accusing the country of sending U.S. deportees to nations where they face persecution, and the complaint was lodged with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Al Jazeera said the lawsuit targets a so-called "third-country" agreement between Equatorial Guinea and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, and it was brought on behalf of 14 deportees.

BBC

The same Al Jazeera report said the indictment described some detainees in Equatorial Guinea under conditions "amounting to arbitrary and indefinite detention," and it said six represented in the complaint had already been forcibly repatriated within the last week despite expressing fear of persecution or torture.

The BBC reported that the Democratic Republic of the Congo agreed to host migrants expelled from the United States who are not themselves Congolese, while saying the Congolese government would incur no financial cost and that the U.S. would provide "Logistical and technical support".

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the BBC said facilities intended to house arrivals had been selected in the capital, Kinshasa, and that the government did not specify how many expelled people it would accept.

“By MARK BANCHEREAU DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — More than half of the 15 Latin Americans deported in April to Congo under the Trump administration’s widely criticized crackdown on migrants have returned to their countries of origin, the Congolese government and one of their lawyers said Friday”

Boston Herald

The BBC also said a minority report from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee estimated the Trump administration would have "probably" spent more than $40 million expelling people to third countries through January 2026, while the total cost was "unknown," and it added that the United States had paid "directly" more than $32 million to five countries.

Boston Herald, citing the Congolese government and one of the migrants’ lawyers, said more than half of the 15 Latin Americans deported in April to Congo under the Trump administration’s crackdown had returned to their countries of origin, and it quoted U.S.-based attorney Alma David saying eight deportees had returned in recent weeks.

The Boston Herald report also said U.S. immigration judges ruled they were likely to face persecution back home, and it included David’s warning that "The fact that they chose to return there anyway raises serious concerns" about whether no viable alternative was presented.