It all happened below the media’s radar, but we now know that in the dead of night on January 14 nine men and women were handcuffed, bundled onto a plane and flown from the US to Yaoundé in Cameroon, victims of Donald Trump’s third-country deportation scheme.

Slightly more than a month later – on February 16 – and again under the cover of darkness, another eight men were dispatched to the West African country.

Both groups have no historical or cultural ties to Cameroon and their deportation brings to about 300 the number of unwanted migrants the US has sent to third countries – many of them in Africa – since July 2025, according to US Senate reports.

Under the scheme, a host country can detain the deportees, allow them to stay temporarily or deport them onwards to their home country.

The practice began in July, when a flight carrying individuals from Vietnam, Laos, Cuba and Yemen touched down in Eswatini. A second batch, comprising ten deportees originally from Cambodia, Chad, Cuba, the Philippines and Vietnam, arrived in October.

Also in July, a group of migrants – citizens of Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar and Vietnam – was deported to South Sudan, a country with ongoing conflict and grave human rights concerns, including risks of arbitrary detention and violence, raising alarm among lawyers and human rights advocates that vulnerable people were being shipped to unstable countries.

In August, Rwanda became the third African third-country host, receiving seven individuals whose nationalities have not been disclosed. It later emerged that Rwanda had agreed to accept 250 migrants.

International media reported in August that Uganda was also to receive deportees from the US, although government officials denied that a final agreement had been concluded.

Meanwhile, in September, Ghana was reported to have agreed to accept 14 deportees, primarily West Africans, citing the Economic Community of West African States’ free movement protocols as the basis for its decision, with human rights organisations and other independent sources confirming onward movement and repatriations from Ghana.

The deportations to Cameroon are different in at least two respects. While for Eswatini, Ghana, Rwanda, South Sudan and other partners, there have been formal agreements or memoranda of understanding between the US and the host country, US officials have not publicly disclosed any treaty or official framework under which Cameroon agreed to take them.

What’s more, many of the migrants deported to Cameroon had previously been granted removal protections by US immigration courts because they had credible fears of persecution if sent back to their home countries.

Instead of adhering to the court orders, human rights advocates say US officials chose to send them to Cameroon – a country to which they have no citizenship ties – as a way to technically comply with the orders by avoiding direct return.

Now we know from media reports that Cameroon has repatriated two of the deportees to their countries of origin – an eventuality the US court orders were designed to guard against.

My objection to this scheme is mostly on ethical grounds. By sending migrants to countries where they have no historical, cultural or family ties, the US is effectively shifting the burden of care and protection to African States. In addition, migrants’ vulnerabilities – previously recognised by US courts – are being treated as negotiable, and African States are being made instruments of US policy rather than partners in protection.

Moreover, dispatching unwanted migrants to third countries with limited safeguards – a description that fits all the recipients to date, perhaps with the exception of Ghana – effectively undermines the ethical principle that States must protect people from harm.

Worryingly, the African Union’s (AU’s) silence on the matter has been deafening, with no record of public condemnation or even acknowledgment, despite the fact that the deportations strike at the heart of continental principles.

Through instruments such as the African Charter on Human Rights and People’s Rights and the Refugee Convention of the Organisation of African Unity – the AU’s antecedent organisation – the continental body explicitly obliges member States to protect displaced people and refugees.

Yet, when US planes land in countries such as Cameroon, Rwanda and South Sudan carrying deportees with no ties to those countries – and sometimes with ongoing threats to their lives – the AU chooses to look the other way.

Its silence isn’t neutrality; it is abdication of responsibility.