‘Like a jungle’: inside the eSwatini prison holding US deportees

Few places in the small African kingdom of eSwatini have a more feared reputation than the Matsapha Correctional Centre, a high-security sprawl of concrete and rust outside the capital, Mbabane.

“It’s like a jungle,” a former detainee told Agence France-Presse of the prison that is holding 14 men deported from the United States in the Trump administration’s crackdown on migrants.

For decades, the prison has embodied the repressive policies of the southern African nation, routinely used to silence critics and pro-democracy activists.

Now, as the United States expels foreign nationals, the prison has an additional and just as troubling role, lawyers say.

Africa’s last absolute monarchy has agreed to accept up to 160 US deportees in exchange for US$5.1 million to strengthen its border and migration systems, according to a deal seen by Agence France-Presse.

  

​Read More