African asylum seekers describe being shackled, beaten and bullied by US deportation officials
10 January 2021 - 21:29
A few dozen men and women shuffled up the stairs to the Boeing 767 lashed in five-point restraints: ankles bound in cuffs joined by thick chains, wrists manacled, and the whole rig secured to metal belts draped heavily about each waist. Frightened, depressed and faint from lack of food and water, one of the men, a Cameroonian singer, tripped and fell. A cadre of armed guards immediately swarmed him.
“They pulled me across the tarmac, sat on my back, and stuffed me into a sack,” says the man, whose name I am withholding to protect him from retribution...
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