Protests are rare in the small southern African kingdom of Eswatini, and largely repressed. But that didn’t stop more than a hundred women from gathering on July 18, 2025 in front of the US embassy in Manzini, the economic capital of the country still widely known by its former name of Swaziland. Come out and talk with us!” they shouted.
What the women wanted to talk about was the secret arrival of foreign “criminals” who had just been transferred to Swazi prisons. Fearing for the safety of their children, the demonstrators were demanding that these prisoners be sent back to the US – where they had just been deported from. Over the course of a year, four planes have discreetly touched down in Eswatini carrying 32 migrants deported by the administration of US President Donald Trump.
Wedged between Mozambique and South Africa, this country is preparing to host 160 deportees in total. All of them will be held in the central prison of Matsapha, not far from Manzini. In a country where daily life is still largely shaped by tradition and where few dare to question the decisions of King Mswati III, the secret arrangement with Washington has nevertheless set off an outcry of rare force.
Determined to meet these migrants face-to-face, the lawyer has been turned away from the prison five times. A well-known attorney and human rights specialist as well as a former colleague of Thulani Maseko, a human rights lawyer shot dead in 2023, Nhlabatsi is not taking no for an answer. He took his case to the Supreme Court, which ruled in his favour in 2025.
The government appealed the decision. In March 2026, the High Court of Mbabane finally authorised the detainees to see him. The detainees’ cases can be hard to untangle, as the detainees come from as far afield as Vietnam, Laos, Yemen, Cuba, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo or Jamaica.
The only thing they have in common is having been previously convicted by US courts – though Nhlabatsi stressed that they were not the monsters they were being made out to be. They have been living in American society.” The feeling of injustice is keenly felt behind the bars of Matsapha’s high-security prison. But not every detainee has the same strength left to fight for their return to their families in the US.
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