Six people refused to get off ICE deportation plane – now they’re held in limbo in Equatorial Guinea

Bamy hotel in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. About 60 other people, mostly Africans from other countries, have been deported to the country since November. Photograph: Monika Pronczuk/AP

In late August, around 20 people were put on a flight in the US, shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles, and sent to Liberia as part of one of the largest third-country deportation arrangements of Donald Trump’s second term.

Although more than 23,000 people have been sent to 26 countries other than their own since last year, that day saw something that had not happened before: six people refused to get off the plane – and were instead taken to another country.