US Deportees Beaten in Equatorial Guinea Hotel, Lawyers Say

Two men expelled by the Trump administration to Equatorial Guinea were bound, fitted with bags over their heads, beaten and pushed down a flight of stairs in plain view of other U.S. deportees, witnesses and human‑rights lawyers say. The men, Ahmed Soliman, 31, from Egypt, and Samson Birhane, 47, from Eritrea, were later taken to a prison in Malabo. About 30 U.S. deportees remain trapped at the Hotel Bamy on the outskirts of Malabo after being expelled from the United States.

Detainees describe a run‑down establishment under 24‑hour armed guard surveillance, with no medical care or fresh clothing since arrival. One detainee with a severe stomach hernia has been unable to see a doctor. Others have had to obtain medication for HIV, diabetes and other conditions through human‑rights lawyers, but fear that access will be cut off. The hotel has become a site of violence, with guards pointing guns and confiscating phones after detainees attempted to communicate with lawyers and the media.

The United States has sent at least 66 people from African countries, Cuba and Brazil to Equatorial Guinea, which received $7.5 million as part of a cooperation deal. The Trump administration pursued deals with third countries where deportees have no ties, speak no local language and lack legal status, trapping them in limbo. Equatorial Guinea’s authoritarian regime is notorious for human‑rights abuses, including torture, and the U.N. has called on the country to halt plans to return deportees to their home countries to avoid refoulement.

Human‑rights experts, including Bella Mosselmans of the Global Strategic Litigation Council, have called the situation a human‑rights catastrophe and urged both governments to be held accountable. In the week after the beating, police searched hotel rooms for phones, confiscated them and barred lawyers from seeing the deportees, telling the 29 remaining U.S. detainees that they may never see Soliman or Birhane again. ICE and the State Department declined to comment on the violence or to confirm awareness of Equatorial Guinea’s treatment of U.S. deportees.