The first migrants deported from the United States \u200bunder a recent bilateral agreement arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo early on Friday, according \u200cto one of the migrants, a lawyer in contact with the group and two airport sources.<\/p>\n
The plane carrying the deportees \u2013 from Colombia, Peru and Ecuador \u2013 landed in Kinshasa at around 1 a.m. (0000 GMT), flight tracking data showed.<\/p>\n
A Colombian woman among \u200bthe group, who spoke to Reuters, said there were 16 migrants \u2014 nine men and seven women. \u200bAn airport source put the number of arrivals at 15.<\/p>\n
Congo’s interior ministry and \u2060a spokesperson for the Congolese presidency did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
Reuters\u00a0reported\u00a0on Wednesday that \u200bmore than 30 migrants were expected to be deported to Congo this week.<\/p>\n
Alma David, a U.S.-based lawyer representing \u200bone of the migrants, said the lower number of arrivals could be due to last-minute interventions by U.S. federal judges. She said she was aware of at least three cases in which judges halted removals.<\/p>\n
It is unclear how many people \u200bcould ultimately be deported under the agreement between Washington and Kinshasa, announced on\u00a0April 5.<\/p>\n
‘VERY LONG’ JOURNEY, MIGRANT \u200bSAYS<\/strong><\/p>\n “The flight was very calm. They treated us well and gave us enough food,” said the Colombian migrant, who \u200cspoke on \u2060condition of anonymity for safety reasons.<\/p>\n “It was very long, around 26 or 27 hours.”<\/p>\n Flight tracking data showed the plane departed from Alexandria, Louisiana, stopping in Dakar, Senegal, and Accra, Ghana, before reaching Kinshasa.<\/p>\n It is the first transfer of so-called third-country deportees to Congo, a country grappling with widespread insecurity, displacement and a \u200bfragile asylum system.<\/p>\n The deportation agreement \u200bcoincides with the Trump \u2060administration’s efforts to implement a\u00a0U.S.-brokered peace deal\u00a0between Congo and Rwanda aimed at ending fighting with Rwanda-backed M23 rebels in eastern Congo that has killed thousands \u200band displaced hundreds of thousands more.<\/p>\n It also follows the signing of\u00a0a strategic \u200bpartnership\u00a0granting the \u2060United States preferential access to Congo’s critical minerals.<\/p>\n Once in Congo, the deportees were told they had been granted a seven-day visa allowing them to move freely in the country, which could be extended for up to \u2060three months, \u200bthe Colombian migrant said.<\/p>\n The group was also informed that they \u200bwere welcome to apply for asylum in Congo, though officials discouraged them from doing so, warning Congo was dangerous, the migrant said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The first migrants deported from the United States \u200bunder a recent bilateral agreement arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo early on Friday, according \u200cto one of the migrants, a lawyer in contact with the group and two airport sources. The plane carrying the deportees \u2013 from Colombia, Peru and Ecuador \u2013 landed in Kinshasa […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":20416,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,2362,2377],"tags":[2507,72,3095,359,3408],"class_list":["post-20538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-featured","category-migration","tag-colombia","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo","tag-ecuador","tag-kinshasa","tag-peru"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20539,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20538\/revisions\/20539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}