The United States wants to deport African migrants to Equatorial Guinea, the west African country’s deputy leader has said.
“I confirm that there was a conversation in which the United States expressed its intentions, but no conclusion was reached,” vice president Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue wrote on his X account on Wednesday.
In exchange for accepting deported African migrants from the United States, Mangue said he had asked President Donald Trump’s administration to cover the housing and living costs of the deportees and to invest in local programmes to help them reintegrate socially.
In the capital Malabo, the topic stirred emotions among some Equatorial Guineans, who fear the deported migrants could be “criminals”.
But Mangue said the country would avoid accepting migrants with criminal records.
“In my opinion, there could be an agreement, but we choose the people we can welcome based on their respective profiles,” he said.
At the end of April, the United States said it was “actively” seeking countries willing to take in nationals from third countries, aiming to fulfil Trump’s campaign promise of a large-scale deportation of undocumented migrants.
According to the online newspaper Radio Macuto, based in Spain and close to the Equatorial Guinean opposition, the government’s rhetoric “seems benevolent”, but it clashes with the reality in the streets of Malabo, Bata and other cities in the country.
Authorities have launched a new wave of raids and arbitrary expulsions against migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, many of whom have lived in Equatorial Guinea for years, the newspaper said.
Nigerians, Cameroonians and Chadians have been arrested without warrants and unceremoniously deported, it added.
“How can a regime that expels poor, settled migrants now be willing to take in others deported from the US,” the newspaper asked.
In mid-April, Malabo expelled over 200 Cameroonians, raising diplomatic tensions with Yaounde, which hauled in Equatorial Guinea’s ambassador to express its “outrage and disapproval”.
Equatorial Guinea responded that it had expelled “undocumented migrants”.
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