By Enyichukwu Enemanna
At least nine West African migrants who were expelled from the United States in President Donald Trump’s crackdown on Wednesday arrived Sierra Leone, authorities have confirmed.
The deportees are from Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, and Senegal, according to authorities.
The plane carrying the migrants landed at the international airport outside Freetown on Wednesday morning, an AFP journalist reported.
“We have received nine deportees this morning from the US,” Foreign Minister Timothy Musa Kabba told AFP, after initially saying 25 migrants would arrive.
Police, medics, and government officials were on hand to receive them at the airport.
The nine deportees, with their heads bowed, were seen boarding a minibus outside the airport under a police escort.
All were “traumatised due to the months in chains during detention in the US,” a health ministry official at the scene, Doris Bah said. AFP quoted her as saying that most of them want to return to their home countries.
“Some of the deportees were arrested on the streets and at their place of work, while another was arrested while playing football in the US,” Bah said.
They will be housed in a hotel and are expected to return to their countries within two weeks at the latest, she added.
The authorities in Freetown have agreed to receive 300 people each year — those expelled by the United States. Only persons from the member states of the West African economic bloc ECOWAS are however eligible for this transfer deal.
“We are taking in these deported people because they are from West Africa, and some of them hold Sierra Leonean residence permits obtained many years ago,” Foreign Minister Timothy Musa Kabba told AFP by telephone late Tuesday.
They “have the right to stay in the country for 90 days and can then return to their country of origin”, he added.
Sierra Leone is the latest African country to agree to receive people deported from the United States, following Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Ghana, Rwanda, and South Sudan.
In return, Washington provides financial and logistical support.
Some countries, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, have taken in migrants from other continents, including Latin America.
