Sierra Leone agreed to accept US deportees, later described months in chains

On November 20, 2025, Sierra Leone's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation sent a note verbale to the U.S. Embassy in Freetown expressing willingness to accept the transfer of up to 300 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) citizens per year from the United States, retaining complete discretion to accept or reject any individual proposed. The arrangement was finalized through a further exchange of notes in January 2026, under which Sierra Leone agreed to accept up to 25 people per month (300 per year) in exchange for a $1.5 million U.S. grant funding a private contractor, Kenvah Solutions, to handle housing and care; the disclosed terms were not made public on the State Department's website until that June.

The first nine deportees — five from Ghana, two from Guinea, one from Senegal, one from Nigeria — arrived in Freetown on May 20, 2026, though authorities had expected 24. Doris Bah, a Sierra Leonean health ministry official present at the arrival, said the group was "traumatized due to the months in chains during detention in the US," adding that some had been arrested at their workplace, on the street, or while playing football, and that most wanted to return to their home countries as soon as possible. A second flight carrying roughly a dozen more people arrived that June; the Associated Press subsequently reported, based on documents and an attorney's account, that deportees sent to Sierra Leone faced a real risk of being pressured back to the countries they had fled — despite prior U.S. court orders specifically barring their removal there — mirroring a pattern AP had also documented in Ghana and Equatorial Guinea.

2026-01-26 — Exchange of notes finalized terms, excluded people with violent criminal backgrounds

The U.S. Embassy in Freetown confirmed receipt of Sierra Leone's January 21, 2026 note finalizing the arrangement, and informed the ministry it did not intend to propose anyone with a violent criminal background for transfer, to the extent known to the U.S. government — completing the understanding first proposed in the November 2025 note verbale.