The three men deported from the United States have left Eswatini and returned to their home countries of Yemen, Belize and Laos, according to the kingdom’s government, which is pushing back against reports that the group had been quietly moved across the border into South Africa. The men arrived from the US under the bilateral arrangement between Mbabane and Washington DC.
The clarification came after claims circulated that the deportees had been secretly released to South Africa. In response, Eswatini issued a statement laying out its account of what happened to the men and how the process was handled. Clayson Monyela, in a post on October 7, 2026, pointed to that statement, writing that the facts were set out there and directing readers to a community note on the story.
At the center of the government’s account is the operational record of the arrangement itself. Thabile Mdluli, the acting government spokesperson, said the latest departures were not an isolated case. “This is however not the first group of TCNs [Third-Country Nationals] to be repatriated as the Kingdom has successfully facilitated the repatriation of ten TCNs since entering into an agreement with the government of the United States of America,” she said.
That figure frames the arrangement as a functioning pipeline rather than a one-off transfer: ten Third-Country Nationals repatriated in total since the agreement with Washington was signed, with the three most recent departures forming the latest tranche. The government’s message, in effect, is that the mechanism agreed between the two capitals has worked as designed, and that the men have moved through it and gone home.
Mdluli also credited the partners who made the transits possible, an acknowledgment of the coordination any such movement of people requires. “The government of Eswatini is very grateful to the countries and the relevant authorities that have cooperated with the Kingdom in facilitating the transit of the Third-Country Nationals as they make their way home,” she said. She added that the kingdom “reiterates its commitment to ensuring the rights, well-being and dignity of these Third-Country Nationals are respected and protected during their temporary stay in the Kingdom.”
That reference to a temporary stay underscores how the arrangement was meant to operate in practice: deportees sent from the United States would remain in Eswatini only while onward travel to their countries of origin was arranged, then be moved on. The government’s statement presents the completed repatriations as evidence that this sequence, arrival, temporary stay, transit, return, has now been carried through for the men from Yemen, Belize and Laos.
The dispute over whether the men were released to South Africa or formally repatriated goes to the reliability of the process itself, which is why Mbabane moved quickly to correct the record. Eswatini holds a regional role that raises the stakes of that record: the kingdom is currently chairing the Southern African Development Community organ on politics, defence and security cooperation, a position that places it at the center of regional political and security coordination.
For now, the government’s position is straightforward. The three men deported from the United States have left the kingdom, the repatriations were handled through the channels agreed with Washington and the partner authorities involved, and the total number of Third-Country Nationals returned home under the agreement now stands at ten. Whether that account settles the questions raised by the reports of a secret release to South Africa remains to be seen, but Eswatini has put its version of the operational facts on the table and invited scrutiny of them.