At least 15 third-country migrants have been sent to the southern African nation since July under a controversial bilateral deal
Eswatini has confirmed receiving $5.1 million from Washington in exchange for taking in migrants deported from the US who have no ties with the southern African nation.
Finance Minister Neal Rijkenberg told lawmakers on Monday that the funds formed part of a bilateral agreement signed in May. In September, the non-profit group Human Rights Watch reported that the Eswatini government had agreed to accept up to 160 “third-country nationals” expelled by the US and to use the money to “build border and migration management capacity.”
Responding to a question in parliament about the arrangement, Rijkenberg said the Finance Ministry had been kept in the dark throughout the process, AFP reported.
“We were told it was for the US deportees after we enquired,” he said, according to the outlet.
The minister also told Reuters on Tuesday that the transaction was handled by the prime minister’s office and that he was only informed about it after the fact.
US President Donald Trump has pursued controversial agreements with several African states to host migrants that Washington deems ineligible to remain in the US.
Equatorial Guinea has also received $7.5 million from the Trump administration to accept non-citizens removed from the US, according to Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen. South Sudan, Ghana, Rwanda, and Uganda, have all agreed to deals to host a number of deportees.
In July, the US Department of Homeland Security deported five men from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Cuba, and Yemen, all convicted of crimes ranging from child rape to murder, to Eswatini, Africa’s last absolute monarchy. Ten more people were reportedly sent there last month, even as the Eswatini government faces a lawsuit from human rights lawyers who argue that the “secretive” deal is unconstitutional.
According to the migrants’ legal team, except for one man who has since been repatriated to Jamaica, many remain locked up without charge and without regular access to legal counsel.
The government of neighboring South Africa has also criticized the arrangement, warning that the deportees, who US officials have described as “barbaric criminals,” could easily cross the countries’ porous border into South Africa.
