Five Deportees Who Refused to Leave the Plane in Liberia Were Flown to Equatorial Guinea Instead, Reuters Reports

Five people the United States tried to deport to Liberia on Aug. 20 refused to get off the plane and were flown on to Equatorial Guinea, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The group was described as three Cuban men, a Brazilian man and a Cameroonian woman. Two sources said the five were told they would be returned to the United States, but the aircraft instead flew to Malabo, where they were made to disembark. A Liberian official said only 15 of the 20 deportees got off in Monrovia.

The flight was the first under Liberia's agreement to accept up to 1,200 third-country deportees. Reuters reported the five are now held with more than 30 others at a decommissioned hotel in Malabo; five rights groups said last month that conditions there involve inadequate medical care and denial of legal assistance. DHS said the migrants "were deported to a safe third country."

Neither Liberia's information ministry nor Equatorial Guinea's government responded to Reuters' requests for comment.