An opinion piece built on an investigation by France 24 and the Forbidden Stories network. We report their findings as findings.
Over the past year, four planes have landed quietly in Eswatini carrying 32 migrants deported from the United States, according to a France 24 investigation published on 23 September 2026 as part of “The Deportation Project,” a collaboration involving Forbidden Stories and 72 journalists across 15 countries. Eswatini, the report says, is preparing to host 160 deportees in total. All of them are held in the central prison at Matsapha.
The men had been convicted by US courts and deported under an arrangement the investigation describes as a secret deal struck by the Trump administration as part of its mass deportation programme. In many cases, they arrived in a country they knew nothing about.
The story is not abstract for the people living here. On 18 July 2025, more than a hundred women gathered outside the US embassy in Manzini, the economic capital, demanding to speak to the ambassador about the foreign prisoners who had just been transferred into Swazi custody. Their stated fear was for the safety of their children.
The questions nobody answered in public
A deal like this raises questions a functioning democracy would expect to see debated in the open: Who signed it? Under what legal framework are foreign nationals, convicted in another country, held in Eswatini’s prisons? Who pays for their detention, and for how long? What rights do they have here, and what happens to them when their sentences end?
None of that has been answered in public. And a secret agreement between two governments, one of which is not the one holding the people, is precisely the kind of arrangement that should be dragged into daylight.
What it means for Eswatini
There are practical costs. Matsapha’s prison has a finite capacity, and every cell given to a foreign deportee is a cell not available to the local justice system. There are reputational costs too. A country that becomes a quiet destination for other nations’ unwanted prisoners invites scrutiny it did not choose.
There is also the harder question of consent. Eswatini’s people were not asked whether they wanted this. The women who marched in Manzini were not asked. The communities around Matsapha were not asked. A decision this consequential, taken in secret, treats the public as an inconvenience rather than the people the state exists to serve.
The honest read
The investigation does not claim to have seen the deal itself, and Eswatini’s government has not publicly confirmed its terms. That uncertainty should be stated plainly. But the arrivals are real, the prison is real, and the protest was real. A country can be sovereign and still be used. The test is whether anyone here gets to decide.
Sources
- France 24, Caroline Dumay, “‘I had never heard of Eswatini’: Deported by the US to a country that rejects them,” 23 September 2026, with Forbidden Stories and “The Deportation Project” — https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20260923-never-heard-eswatini-deported-by-us-country-that-rejects-them-forbidden-stories
- France 24, “Third-country removals: Trump’s deportation policy by the numbers,” 21 September 2026
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