Timothy Musa Kabba said Sierra Leone received nine migrants deported from the United States on Wednesday morning when a plane carrying them touched down at Freetown International Airport just outside the capital.
The group numbered nine — seven men and two women — and included five people from Ghana, two from Guinea, one from Nigeria and one from Senegal, Kabba added.
Sierra Leone announced the arrival as part of an agreement under which it has agreed to accept up to 300 people a year expelled by the United States. The government said those accepted would be limited to nationals who originally come from ECOWAS member states and that the incoming migrants would be housed in a hotel and sent back to their home countries within two weeks at the latest.
Doris Bah, speaking about the new arrivals, described the condition of the group on arrival: "All were traumatised due to the months in chains during detention in the US." Bah said the deportees' arrests had been varied: "Some of the deportees were arrested on the streets and their place of work, while another was arrested while playing football in the US."
The flight also carried people who, the government said, hold Sierra Leonean residence permits obtained years ago, a detail that underlined the messy nationality and residency lines involved in third-country removals.
The arrangement is being supported by a $1.5 million grant from the US government to cover humanitarian and operational costs linked to the program. The United States has already struck third-country deportation deals with at least eight other African nations, and similar flights have gone to countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana and South Sudan.
In September, Human Rights Watch urged African nations to reject the "opaque deals" involving third-country deportations, arguing they raise human rights concerns. That criticism sits beside public comments from regional leaders: Ghanaian President John Mahama in September said, "We agreed with [the US] that West African nationals were acceptable," a remark that signaled regional buy-in among some governments for deals limited to ECOWAS citizens.
The numbers at stake give the arrangement immediate weight: Sierra Leone capped its participation at up to 300 people a year. For this group of nine, officials have set a tight timetable — temporary hotel accommodation and transfers home within two weeks — a schedule the government says will minimize local costs and logistical strain.
But the plan exposes a tension between speed and safeguards. Human rights advocates warned in September that third-country deportations can be opaque; the government's promise of quick onward travel collides with accounts from officials who say detainees arrived "traumatised" after months in chains. Those facts raise questions about how screening, consent and access to legal assistance will be handled before migrants are moved again.
For the nine who landed Wednesday, the next steps are set and fast: hotel shelter followed by repatriation to Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria or Senegal within two weeks. For Sierra Leone, the arrival is an early test of an agreement that could bring hundreds more over the coming year under a program tied to broader us deportations to sierra leone — and it will likely be measured against the human rights concerns voiced by watchdogs and the operational tightness the government has promised.
