Lower Thirds: 

0:02	Report by Blaise Eyong

0:29	 'Zainab',  Deportee & asylum seeker

1:16	'Mercy',  Deportee & asylum seeker

1:37	Blaise Eyong | DW Correspondent | Yaounde

2:12	Joseph Fru | Lawyer representing deportees

3:13	Elvis Ngolle Ngolle | Former Minister and ruling party official

((info:The United States has reached secretive and highly controversial deals with at least 30 countries to accept people it cannot legally deport directly to their home countries. One of these countries is Cameroon, where DW met deportees living in extremely precarious and stressful conditions. Our correspondent Blaise Eyong reports from Yaoundé)) 

Script: 

These three women are members of Ghana’s LGBTQ+ community who fled persecution in their homeland and arrived in the US in 2024. Immigration took them into custody and they were granted legal protection that prevented US authorities from sending them back to Ghana. Instead, they were deported to Cameroon this January: Zainab, not her real name, recounts how she was put on a plane, shackled and in chains. 

+++ ((SOT)) ((ENGLISH)) ‘’ZAINAB’’ deportee 
‘’You couldn't move and it felt like we had committed some kind of crime, like, example, terrorism. And I felt like a terrorist because, I mean, what on earth did I do to be shackled like that, both hands and feet? I can't even move. I just came to the United States for safety. I didn't expect that at all’’ 

Zainab is among 36 migrants who have been deported from the US to Cameroon as part of Trump's controversial third-country deportation agreement so far. None of them have any ties to Cameroon. 

+++ ((SOT)) ((ENGLISH)) ‘’Mercy’’, deportee 
 ‘’We are not criminals. We entered America for us to be safe. If you were safe in our country, we don't believe you go to America to go and seek asylum. And this is so heartbreaking, because you can't treat human beings like this. We are treated like we are slaves. We don't have life anymore. And Cameroon is not a safe country.’’ 
 
+++((PTC)) ((YAOUNDE)) BLAISE EYONG, DW CORRESPONDENT 
‘’For these migrants, they cannot return to their home countries because they fear for their lives. Here in Cameroon, they are also not welcome. Faced with this dilemma, many simply do not know what to do’’ 

For the first two months, the deportees were detained in a government compound in Cameroon’s capital Yaoundé. They were only allowed out after they went on a hunger strike. Even now, though they can go out they have to be back by sundown. They are not allowed to work and their asylum requests have not yet been approved. Joseph Fru is their lawyer. 

+++ ((SOT)) ((ENGLISH)) Joseph Fru, Lawyer 
‘’You cannot send somebody to harm that they are fleeing from. And so that's the concern with this, with this special group of people, because they are not only vulnerable, they are doubly victimized because they are running away from a country that has persecuted them. And then now they are being sent to a country they do not know that still has the possibility of persecuting them. That makes it even doubly dangerous.’’ 

Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, his administration has deported thousands of migrants. The details of the agreement between Cameroon and the US remain secret. But according to a New York Times investigation, Washington withheld a $30 million payment to the UN refugee agency in Cameroon, only releasing it after  the country agreed to accept the deportees. Elvis Ngole Ngole is a member of Cameroon’s ruling party and a former minister. 

+++ ((SOT)) ((ENGLISH)) ELVIS NGOLLE NGOLLE, Former minister and ruling party official 
 ‘’As friends, as good partners, if America has the need to deport some that it does not, that it seeks to deport and wants to pass through Cameroonian territory, in a relationship of partnership, of mutual respect, Cameroon has no reason to say, no, no, no, no, no, my borders are closed. No, no, because the relationship between the two countries is based on the principles of open borders, no frontier’’ 

+++ ((SOT)) ((ENGLISH)) ‘’ZAINAB’’ deportee 
‘’ I'd absolutely have no one to rely on in this country.It's very terrifying. 

With countries like Cameroon willing to take in deportees from the US, more people are expected to find themselves stuck in a land they never wanted to be in. 

+++END