JOHANNESBURG, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Eswatini has received four additional "third-country" deportees from the United States, bringing the total number of individuals sent to the African kingdom to 19, the government announced on Thursday.
The four new arrivals -- two Somalis, a Tanzanian and a Sudanese -- reportedly arrived late Wednesday at the Matsapha Maximum-Security Correctional Centre. They join others already held at the facility, which authorities say can accommodate up to 140 more people.
In 2025, the U.S. Trump administration introduced a third-country policy with several African countries, including Eswatini, allowing the United States to deport immigrants described by officials as "so uniquely barbaric that their own countries won't take them back" to those nations.
The program began sending deportees to Eswatini last July. In return, the kingdom has received 5.1 million U.S. dollars from Washington as part of the arrangement, local media reported.
"Intensive engagements with the respective countries of origin ... are ongoing," the Eswatini government said in a statement.
South Africa, which shares a 430-km border with Eswatini, has expressed deep concern over the arrangement from the outset. After the first batch arrived in Eswatini last July, it issued a statement saying the reception of high-risk deportees could have an adverse impact on South Africa's national security and immigration policy. ■
