Outcry as Eswatini accepts criminal deportees from US

Civil society groups are demanding answers after Eswatini received five high-risk deportees with convictions for murder, homicide and child rape who were rejected by their own home nations.

- By Peter Fabricius

Civil society groups in Eswatini and South Africa have threatened legal action against the Swazi government for accepting five hardened third-country criminals from the US.

But Eswatini Prime Minister Russell Dlamini has said his country is open to receiving more deportees if requested to do so by the US and if Eswatini has the capacity.

The Swaziland Litigation Centre, Swaziland Rural Women's Assembly and the Southern Africa Litigation Centre based in Johannesburg have issued a statement in which they threatened legal action if the Eswatini government did not back off from the deportee deal with the US.

US Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said last week that the deportees, from Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Vietnam and Yemen, had criminal records that included convictions for murder, homicide and child rape.

They were "so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back", she added.

The Eswatini government confirmed that the men had arrived and been detained. It claimed they presented no threat to the Swazi people.

But the three civil society organisations said the arrival of the men raised many questions, especially in a country where correctional centres are overcrowded, the government is grappling with a range of crises, including a shortage of essential medicines, “and where there have been consistent calls for a democratic, open and transparent government”.