Africa
African Charter, article 5; the African Commission, the African Court and the ECOWAS Court
The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment and treatment (article 5). Complaints can go to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, in some states to the African Court, and in West Africa to the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice.
Updates – 5 November 2026
Third Country Deportation Watch recorded the first transfers to the Dominican Republic and further flights to Panama, Paraguay, Ghana, Cameroon, Liberia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Eswatini, Burundi and the Central African Republic. The Foreign Minister of Jamaica said nine of the 22 people sent there had left, a court in Arizona was told that a man sent to Equatorial Guinea was booked to fly back on 4 November, Human Rights First reported that a fourth flight to Iran may follow, and four amicus briefs were filed in the Supreme Court.
Emails Show ICE Worked With Iran on Three Deportation Flights. Human Rights First Reports That a Fourth May Follow.
The Associated Press reported in August that emails show ICE working with Iranian officials on three deportation flights to Iran. A federal court in Washington has denied a preliminary injunction in a challenge to the alleged sharing of information about Iranian asylum seekers, which the government denies. Human Rights First reports that a fourth flight may follow, and Iranians have been among the people sent to the Central African Republic.
What changed in October 2026
Jamaica received its first group of people from the United States, Sierra Leone a fifth flight, and a federal court ordered a man brought back from Equatorial Guinea. Eswatini and Burundi made statements, ICE told courts that flights to Uganda are paused, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First published new counts, and the Supreme Court set its timetable.
Third-Country Removal Is a Pretext for Refoulement. The United States Is Sending People Its Judges Protected Back to Torture and Persecution Through Transit Countries in Africa and Latin America.
People US immigration judges protected from return are being flown to third countries that send them home or hold them until they go. Courts, sworn declarations, the receiving governments and 60 Minutes document it. The Coalition sets out the record and the law.
Liberia Agreed in September 2025. Liberians Were Told in August 2026.
The agreement under which people are flown from the United States to Liberia was published by the Department of State in March 2026 and announced to Liberians in August. It sets no limit on numbers, provides nothing about lawyers, detention or monitoring, and makes signed operating procedures a condition of any transfer. No such procedures have been produced.
Fourteen People Won Protection in American Courts. Now They Are Before the African Commission.
On 5 June 2026 five organisations filed a complaint against Equatorial Guinea at the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, for fourteen people sent there from the United States. Every one of them had been granted protection by an American immigration judge. Three months on, the Commission has announced nothing.
The Plane Landed in Monrovia at 12:45. By Evening It Was in Malabo.
Six people refused to get off a United States removal flight in Liberia, saying it was not their country and that they would face danger there. They were told they would be flown back to the United States. The same aircraft landed that evening in Equatorial Guinea.
She Filed Her Own Habeas Petition From Detention. Two Days After Her Reply Was Docketed, She Was Flown to Liberia.
Paola Ferreira Dos Santos filed her own petition for habeas corpus from immigration detention in Texas in March. A judge ordered the government to state the status of her removal proceedings. Her reply was entered on the docket on 17 August. On 19 August she was flown to Liberia. The petition has never been decided.
Twenty Were Flown to Liberia on 20 August. Five Were Put Back on the Plane.
Roughly twenty people landed at Monrovia on 20 August. Five refused to leave the aircraft and, Reuters reported, were taken on to Equatorial Guinea. Most of the fifteen who remained had already won an order from an American court forbidding their return to their own countries.
Liberia Agreed to Take 1,200 People Who Are Not Liberian. The Times Reported a Five Million Dollar Payment.
Liberia announced it would accept up to 1,200 people removed from the United States, none of them Liberian, and called the decision entirely humanitarian. Two days later The New York Times reported a five million dollar payment.