“It was terrifying when we landed. The US military guys were on one side with fully loaded rifles and facing them were the [Eswatini] soldiers with guns. They didn’t say anything to each other or to us. The US military just handed us off and the African soldiers threw us in the back of a truck.” – Billy H., originally from Southeast Asia, was one of the men on the first flight that arrived in Eswatini on July 16, 2025.
© 2026 John Holmes for Human Rights Watch