The eight migrants, all convicted of violent crimes in the USA, were put on a plane in Texas in May. They come from very different countries – Cuba, Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos and Mexico – and were to be sent to South Sudan.
The planned deportation was part of the Trump administration's attempt to expel criminal non-citizens to so-called third countries, but the flight was stopped by a judge.
The Trump administration could then have chosen to fly the migrants back to the USA, writes The Washington Post. Instead, they ended up at an American military base in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa.
There, they were placed in a shipping container converted into a temporary detention facility, guarded around the clock by officials from the US migration authority ICE. Upon arrival, the migrants and officials were warned of "imminent danger of rocket attacks from terrorist groups in Yemen", according to an ICE statement to a federal court in the USA.
In the statement, hellish conditions are described. The temperature is around 38 degrees during the day, malaria is rampant and medicines are in short supply. Both the migrants and ICE personnel are reported to have developed symptoms of bacterial infections, with coughing, breathing difficulties and fever.
We are increasingly concerned about the condition of the detainees, says the deportees' lawyer Trina Realmuto to The Washington Post.
