Sierra Leone

What has happened

People flown to Sierra Leone were handed a briefing pamphlet on arrival. The Associated Press has seen a copy. It describes Sierra Leone as a “temporary transit location,” states that “no long-term settlement is provided for or permitted,” and says the government and its contractors are working to “return you home as quickly and safely as possible.”

Everywhere else the Coalition has documented, transit had to be inferred. Here it is written down and handed to the person.

The pamphlet, and exactly what it is.

The three phrases above are the only parts of the document that exist publicly. They appear inside an Associated Press report by Mark Banchereau, who states that AP saw a copy. The pamphlet was distributed by Kenvah Solutions, a private contractor the Sierra Leonean government says it hired to handle the deportees’ accommodation, food, healthcare and transfer. That it was handed to people on arrival is attributed by AP to lawyers, not to AP’s own observation.

The site must quote the three phrases and say where they come from. It must not present them as a pamphlet extract or imply anyone on our side has read the document.

Mark Banchereau, “Migrants deported by US to Sierra Leone risk return to countries where they fear persecution,” Associated Press, 19 June 2026.

The government’s own fact sheet says the same thing in numbers.

A Sierra Leonean government fact sheet on the Third-Country National Arrangement states that “processing for onward repatriation or transfer is expected to be completed within approximately 14 days and, in exceptional situations, may extend up to 30 days,” and that IOM is “supporting repatriation and international coordination processes.”

Published via Sierraloaded, 19 May 2026. Al Jazeera separately reported a period closer to 90 days. Both accounts stand and should be published side by side.

The arrangement, and what it cost

The arrangement is not binding, and the assurance in it cannot bind.

The instrument is an exchange of two diplomatic notes, published by the State Department as a qualifying non-binding instrument under 1 U.S.C. § 112b(b)(1), reference 2026-0033QN. Sierra Leone’s note offers to consider accepting “a maximum of three hundred (300) per annum of citizens of the Economic Community of West African States,” retaining “complete discretion to accept or reject the transfer of any given individual.”

The assurance reads that transferees “would not be subjected to persecution … or torture in Sierra Leone or in any country to which the Government of Sierra Leone may further transfer them.” Note what that clause concedes: onward transfer is contemplated in the text itself, and addressed only by promise.

Retrieved from the State Department Case Act library, foia.state.gov/FOIALIBRARY/QNI2.aspx, file 2026-0033QN.

What the record says about Sierra Leone itself

Lawyers say those transferred held United States court protection.

Attorney Erica Reilly, representing a Nigerian man deported on the June flight, told AP that “the migrants had legal protections from U.S. courts to not be deported to their home countries after judges ruled they faced credible fears of persecution.” She added: “The U.S. government knows exactly what’s going to happen in the vast majority of these situations. Our government is just saying, ‘What happens to them after they leave the United States is not our problem.’”

AP, 19 June 2026. This is counsel’s characterisation, not a court record, and should be attributed to her.

Detention or hospitality, depending on who is describing it.

Sierra Leone’s information ministry said arrivals “have been checked into their hosting facilities, are comfortable and receiving the necessary support.” The Global Detention Project, reporting on 21 July 2026, described de facto detention: deportees “had been detained in a hotel upon arrival, with armed security,” at Lungi near the airport, with authorities restricting access to information about the location and the regime inside.

These accounts are not reconcilable and both should be published.

Sierra Leone is outside the international inspection system.

It signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture on 26 September 2003 and has never ratified it. There is no National Preventive Mechanism and none is owed. It has not accepted article 22, so no individual may complain to the Committee against Torture. Its second periodic report to that Committee was due 23 May 2018 and has not been submitted.

The Committee against Torture found the gap that matters, in 2014.

CAT/C/SLE/CO/1, 20 June 2014, on non-refoulement: “the Committee notes with concern that the Extradition Act 1974 does not explicitly recognize this principle. Although the decision to extradite is subject to judicial review, there is no legal obligation to assess the situation of the applicant with regard to the risk of torture in the country of destination.”

On torture itself: “the Committee is concerned that the State party has not yet incorporated the crime of torture into its criminal legislation … The Committee is therefore seriously concerned at the existence of legal loopholes that allow a situation of impunity for acts of torture and at their prevalence.”

No UN body, no Amnesty document and no Human Rights Watch document names Sierra Leone as a receiving state.

Amnesty’s oral statement to the African Commission of 12 May 2026, AFR 01/1031/2026, lists nine receiving states and omits Sierra Leone; it predates the first flight by eight days. The UN experts’ statements of 8 July 2025 and 13 May 2026 do not mention it. Human Rights Watch’s work on this policy names Sierra Leone only as a country of origin.

That silence is a gap in scrutiny, not a finding of safety, and the site should say so rather than leave it to inference.

What is already before the courts

A federal judge has held the Sierra Leone assurance legally insufficient, in a case that proves the transit point on the record.

The petitioner is a Liberian citizen, subject to a removal order from 2003, whom an immigration judge had granted withholding of removal to Liberia. The Government then designated Sierra Leone as her country of removal. Liberia is an ECOWAS state, and the Sierra Leone arrangement covers ECOWAS citizens whom the programme’s own pamphlet says it will return home as quickly as possible.

Senior Judge David C. Guaderrama:

“the Government’s categorical determination that ‘aliens removed . . . [to Sierra Leone] will not be subject to persecution or torture’ is a far cry from the ‘individualized determinations’ that 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3) and CAT demand. Indeed, there is absolutely no indication that the Government considered Petitioner’s specific circumstances (as it was required to do) before it designated Sierra Leone as her country of removal. Agency guidance cannot ‘supplant the INA’s removal procedures.’ The Government’s attempts to do so here appear to be unlawful.”

The court granted the emergency motion in part and enjoined removal until the Government provides her “the opportunity to seek withholding of removal in the manner prescribed by 8 C.F.R. §§ 208 and 1208.”

Budude Allison Zawu Roberts v. De Anda-Ybarra, No. EP-26-CV-00377-DCG (W.D. Tex., El Paso Div., 22 May 2026), ECF 18, 22 pages. Read in full from the court’s own filing. The DHS guidance of 30 March 2025 on which the Government relied is in the record at ECF 13-2.

The first days

This page has to begin by saying what it cannot offer. Sierra Leone has no International Committee of the Red Cross delegation, no national mechanism for the prevention of torture and none owed, no route by which an individual can complain to the United Nations Committee against Torture, and no route by which an individual can go to the African Court. Those are not gaps in the Coalition’s research. They are the position, and each one is sourced below.

What exists is a national human rights commission with an A accreditation and a record of publishing on prison conditions, a bar association that answers its telephone, a Red Cross society that can carry a message to a family, and the International Organization for Migration, which the Sierra Leonean government’s own fact sheet names as supporting the repatriation of people in this position. Those four are all there is.

Who is reachable in Sierra Leone

The United Nations refugee agency has an operational presence in Sierra Leone, confirmed from its own data portal, but publishes no office address or telephone that the Coalition could reach. That gap is recorded rather than filled from a directory.

There is a court you can file in directly, and it is the strongest route in this project

This country is a member of the Economic Community of West African States, and the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice is open to individuals. Three features make it more useful than anything else available to a person transferred to any of the countries in this project.

You do not need permission from this country to use it.

Article 10 of the 2005 Supplementary Protocol gives access to “Individuals on application for relief for violation of their human rights”, subject only to two conditions: the application must not be anonymous, and the same matter must not already be before another international court.

There is no equivalent of the declaration that closes the African Court. The African Court’s Protocol says at article 34(6) that it “shall not receive any petition” involving a state that has not made a special declaration, and this country has never made one. Seven African states have that declaration in force today, and the only one of them in this project is Ghana. The ECOWAS Protocol contains no such requirement at all. Access follows from this country’s membership of ECOWAS.

You do not have to go through the local courts first.

The Court has held this squarely:

“The rule of exhaustion of local remedies is not applicable before the Court.”

“There is no requirement of the exhaustion of local remedies before accessing this Court.”

For a person in detention with no lawyer and no status, that removes the obstacle that defeats most international claims.

It does not matter that you are not from here.

Article 10(d) says “Individuals” and attaches no nationality condition, and the Court has applied it that way. In Abbiusi v Ghana a Belgian national was re-arrested by immigration officers on the day the charges against her were withdrawn, held for more than twelve hours without access to a lawyer and deported the next day. The Court held that second arrest arbitrary because she was never told the reason for it, found a violation of article 6 of the African Charter and awarded her ten thousand United States dollars. Ghana filed no defence and the judgment went by default, so no objection based on her nationality was argued and none was rejected. What the case shows is what the Court did without being asked: it satisfied itself of jurisdiction and admissibility under article 10(d), and exhaustion of local remedies formed no part of that test. In Saab Moran v Cabo Verde it found the detention of a Venezuelan national unlawful, ordered his release and quashed the extradition proceedings against him.

You must be the person harmed, or someone properly authorised by them. The Court has said it admits “only the victims”.

When to file: as early as you can.

This is the one part the Coalition cannot give a clean answer on, and it would be wrong to pretend otherwise. Article 9(3) of the Protocol says an action is “statute barred after three (3) years from the date when the right of action arose.” In 2018 the Court held that this does not apply to human rights claims against member states and overruled its earlier decisions. Since then it has ruled both ways, including declining to hear a claim against Liberia in October 2024 and accepting claims in 2025 and 2026. The Court has no appellate division to settle the conflict.

Do not rely on the 2018 position. File as early as possible.

What the judgment is worth, honestly.

Judgments are binding, and Article 24 of the Protocol provides for a writ of execution served on the member state and enforced under its own civil procedure. That is the law.

The practice is worse. The Court’s President, Justice Ricardo Cláudio Monteiro Gonçalves, told the inaugural meeting of Competent National Authorities in Lagos on 23 June 2025 that compliance “remains low and currently stands at about 22 per cent”. At the same meeting the Court’s Chief Registrar, Dr Yaouza Ouro-Sama, said that courts whose judgments go unenforced “are perceived as toothless bulldogs”. He was naming a perception he regrets rather than passing verdict on his own court, and the Coalition sets it out that way because the difference matters. In 2008 the Court ordered The Gambia to produce and release a detained journalist; he was never produced. In 2021 it ordered Cabo Verde to release a detained man and quashed the proceedings against him; four months later Cabo Verde flew him to the United States instead.

A judgment from this Court is a real thing: it is binding, it is public, and it names what was done. It is not a guarantee of release.

Supplementary Protocol A/SP.1/01/05 of 19 January 2005 amending Protocol A/P.1/7/91, articles 9 and 10 as substituted, and article 24 as inserted. Hadijatou Mani Koraou v Republic of Niger, ECW/CCJ/JUD/06/08, 27 October 2008, at paragraph 49. Federation of African Journalists and 4 Others v Republic of The Gambia, ECW/CCJ/JUD/04/18, 13 February 2018. Shalimar Abbiusi v Republic of Ghana, application ECW/CCJ/APP/03/24, judgment ECW/CCJ/JUD/41/24, 22 November 2024, taken by default. The Court’s own copy of this judgment was not being served from its website when the Coalition checked, and the account above follows a published review of the judgment rather than the judgment itself; it will be replaced when the text is obtained. Alex Nain Saab Moran v Cape Verde, ECW/CCJ/JUD/07/21, 15 March 2021, set aside application dismissed 24 June 2021. Chief Ebrimah Manneh v Republic of The Gambia, ECW/CCJ/JUD/03/08, 5 June 2008. Global Justice and Research Project and 3 Others v Liberia, ECW/CCJ/RUL/04/24, October 2024. Compliance figure and the Chief Registrar’s remark from the inaugural meeting of Competent National Authorities, Lagos, 23 and 24 June 2025, as reported by Vanguard and The Guardian Nigeria. Checked 8 September 2026. The Court publishes information on legal aid on its own site. The Coalition is reading these provisions and judgments, not advising on them.

Which complaint routes are open

None of the international ones. This section sets out each closure and its source, because a person deciding where to spend their effort is entitled to know which doors are shut before they knock.

Closed: individual complaint to the United Nations Committee against Torture.

Sierra Leone signed the Convention against Torture on 18 March 1985 and ratified it on 25 April 2001. It has never made the declaration under article 22 by which a state accepts that the Committee may receive complaints from individuals. It does not appear on the depositary’s list of the sixty-five states that have. The Committee therefore has no competence to receive a complaint against Sierra Leone at all.

Closed: preventive inspection under the Optional Protocol.

Sierra Leone signed the Optional Protocol on 26 September 2003 and has never ratified it. It is not a party. The United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture has no mandate to visit, and no national preventive mechanism is owed. This is already recorded above and is repeated here so the picture is in one place.

Closed: going to the African Court.

Sierra Leone signed the Protocol establishing the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights on 9 June 1998 and has never ratified it. It is not a party to the Protocol, so the question of an article 34(6) declaration does not arise. Neither an individual nor an organisation can bring a case against Sierra Leone before that Court.

Open in form: communication to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Sierra Leone is a party to the African Charter, so the Commission’s communication procedure is available in principle. The Coalition has not identified a decided communication against Sierra Leone and records that as open below. That a route exists is established. That it works is not.

What the national commission can and cannot do.

This page recommends making a record with the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone. It also has to be accurate about what that commission is.

Its power over places of detention is in section 9(1) of the 2004 Act, which gives a member access to government offices, facilities and “places of detention, including prisons, police cells, remand homes and probation facilities,” in order to investigate a human rights matter the commission has begun or that has been brought to it. That is an investigative access power. The commission’s own website describes a function to visit places of detention and report on conditions, but the list of functions in section 7(2) of the Act does not include detention visiting. The site’s wording is the commission’s restatement, not the statute.

The Act gives it no mandate on torture, and since Sierra Leone is not an Optional Protocol party, none is owed. It does publish on detention, including a report titled Human Rights Behind Bars.

None of that is a reason not to file. It is a reason not to expect the filing, by itself, to produce a visit.

Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone Act 2004, No. 9 of 2004, read from the copy the commission publishes on its own site. Treaty positions from the United Nations Treaty Collection, chapters IV-9 and IV-9-b, and the African Union’s depositary list for the African Court Protocol, all checked 8 September 2026. Accreditation status from the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions chart. Note that a second domain, hrc-sl.org, appears in search results and is not the commission’s site.

Where the Committee against Torture last said anything, and how long ago.

The Committee has issued concluding observations on Sierra Leone once, on 20 June 2014. Sierra Leone’s second periodic report was due on 23 May 2018 and has not been submitted. As at 8 September 2026 it is more than eight years overdue. There is no scheduled review.

What this page still does not know

Where the people flown to Sierra Leone are now, and under what status. Whether any of the three flights carried a person a United States court had protected from removal to their own country, which is available as an inference and is documented for nobody. Whether the Human Rights Commission has visited any of them. Whether the United Nations refugee agency has any role, and if so how it can be reached, since it publishes no contact details for Sierra Leone that the Coalition could find. Whether any communication has ever been decided against Sierra Leone by the African Commission. The statute currently governing the bar association, since the 2011 and 2015 Acts indexed by Parliament may have superseded the one usually cited. And the contract with Kenvah Solutions, the private company the government says it hired to handle accommodation, food, healthcare and transfer, which has never been published.

If you know any of these, the Coalition wants to hear from you.

The dated record

Every entry below is a fact with a source.

What is not established

The Coalition publishes what it can source and says plainly what it cannot. The following is open on this page.

The full text of the pamphlet, which only AP has seen. Its author, which AP does not identify. The date of the first flight, 19 or 20 May. The size of the second flight. Whether the 31 July flight occurred as Sierra Leonean media describe. Whether the woman whose removal AP reported a federal judge halting is the petitioner in Roberts or a different person. Whether any named individual was subsequently removed to a country from which a United States court had protected them. And the Kenvah Solutions contract, which has never been published.