Human rights attorneys have filed a lawsuit against Equatorial Guinea with Africa’s premier human rights commission on Friday, alleging the West African country illegally forced deportees from America back to their home nations in breach of their protections.
The legal filing requests the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which serves as the African Union’s primary human rights authority, to command Equatorial Guinea to stop all future deportations, transfers or removals while enhancing detention standards. The petition also seeks financial compensation for individuals already sent back to their origin countries.
Multiple advocacy organizations, including the Global Strategic Litigation Council coalition, are pursuing the lawsuit on behalf of 14 African migrants expelled from America to Equatorial Guinea from November 2025 through April 2026.
While the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has authority to issue rulings and emergency measures, plus refer matters to the Africa Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, these directives lack binding power. However, advocates believe this groundbreaking case could pressure African governments accepting US deportees.
This represents the region’s first legal challenge involving individuals with legal removal protections who were nonetheless transported to countries where persecution awaits them, according to Beatrice Njeri, the Global Strategic Litigation Council’s regional litigator for Africa.
In March, the commission had previously approved a lawsuit questioning the illegal and extended detention of third-country deportees in the African kingdom of Eswatini.
One month following that decision, Eswatini’s Supreme Court determined that four men sent there could finally access legal representation after being refused in-person attorney meetings for nine months while confined at a maximum-security facility.
Through multiple frequently-classified agreements, the Trump administration expelled thousands of individuals to almost two dozen nations other than their own, according to advocates, as part of America’s extensive immigration enforcement efforts. Immigration attorneys stated the Trump administration utilized third-country deportations as a legal workaround to indirectly return asylum seekers to their origin nations.
Equatorial Guinea represents one of no fewer than eight additional African countries with which America has negotiated third-country deportation arrangements.
Last week, Equatorial Guinea officials transported six deportees to their eastern African country of origin, which attorneys characterize as “chain refoulement,” the indirect transportation of people to locations where persecution threatens them, despite legal safeguards from American courts.
The attorneys stated the migrants encounter political, religious and ethnic persecution in their origin countries, plus violence targeting sexual orientation. Some had previously faced arrest or detention by police or military forces there, with many experiencing torture and sexual violence. All had received protection from US immigration judges against being returned to their home nations under federal immigration statutes.
Following arrival in their home country, two deportees later escaped to another nation and entered hiding. Another has remained unreachable since his forced removal last week, with lawyers expressing serious concerns about his safety.
Three others were sent back to Equatorial Guinea after their origin country declined admission due to lacking proper travel documentation and receiving no advance notification of their arrival.
The migrants were subsequently returned to Equatorial Guinea, where they continue facing legal uncertainty.
“They have effectively been rendered stateless,” said Bella Mosselmans, director of the Global Strategic Litigation Council, characterizing the process as “a cycle of hell.”
Under a secretive $7.5 million agreement with Washington, no fewer than 32 individuals were expelled from America to Equatorial Guinea, which the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jeanne Shaheen, has described as “one of the most corrupt governments in the world.”
The Associated Press documented the circumstances of deportees forced back to their home nations. It also obtained exclusive entry to a hotel converted into a detention facility for asylum seekers deported from the United States by Equatorial Guinea’s all-powerful president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.
Equatorial Guinea ranks among Africa’s wealthiest nations due to its petroleum reserves. It also suffers widespread corruption and human rights violations, according to US officials.
Virtually no dissenting voices exist in Equatorial Guinea, where the government faces accusations from rights organizations and the US State Department of detaining, torturing and even executing those who dare challenge authority.
The nation’s primary foreign investors are American companies, while its military receives funding for training from the US government.
