Sawt Falasteen - US deportation flight carrying Iranians en route to C.African Republic

Such "third-country" deportations, including of people with legal protections, have become a staple of US President Donald Trump's crackdown on immigration.

The US State Department advisory for the impoverished, violence-wracked CAR reads: "Do not travel to Central African Republic for any reason."

Trump has described Iran, with whom Washington is currently at war, as a "terrorist regime" but is nonetheless deporting nationals who have fled the country, including at least two Iranian women, their lawyer said.

The Iranians had been granted "withholding of removal" -- a status that carries weaker rights than asylum but has been considered a "win" in immigration court under previous administrations.

"We fear they will ultimately be forced to return to the countries they originally fled," as has repeatedly happened with other deportees sent across Africa, their attorney, Emily Trostle, told AFP.

The flight took off from Alexandria, Louisiana, on Thursday evening, according to the ICE Flight Monitor, affiliated with non-profit Human Rights First.

It made a scheduled stopover in Ghana -- which is itself a hub for third-country deportations -- just after 1300 GMT on Friday, according to public flight data.

It was unclear if some people were to be taken off the plane there, or if they were all continuing to the Central African Republic, said Alma David, a US immigration lawyer familiar with the case.

She said those headed to the Central African Republic "are mainly withholding grantees from a variety of countries, including Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Georgia".

Neither the US State Department nor Ghanaian immigration authorities immediately responded to a request for comment.

- Previous allegations of abuse -

As part of its crackdown, the Trump administration has expanded who is targeted for deportation and where they can be sent.

Deportees and lawyers have described unsanitary holding conditions in Ghana and indefinite detention in Eswatini, among other alleged abuses.

From Ghana and Equatorial Guinea, another African hub, some people have been sent back home to countries in which US judges ruled they faced danger.

It was not clear what would happen to the deportees upon arrival in the Central African Republic, in what appears to be Bangui's first accord with Washington, which has made a slew of opaque deportation deals in Africa and elsewhere.

Central African authorities did not respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration has argued it is only barred from sending people with "withholding of removal" to their country of origin -- and thus can send them anywhere else.

"These individuals are being removed from the United States and abandoned in a country where they have no status, no connection and no support network," Trostle said.

In recent years, a United Nations peacekeeping mission, Rwandan troops and Russian mercenaries from the notorious Wagner group have helped to improve the Central African Republic's security situation.

But anti-government fighters and armed groups are still present throughout the unstable, mineral-rich country.

Last week, a lawsuit was filed with the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights -- the continent's top human rights body -- to halt US deportations to Equatorial Guinea, a small, authoritarian petro-state that has served as a waystation for African deportees.

The lawsuit also seeks to stop Equatorial Guinea's onward expulsion of the deportees to their home countries.

D.AbuRida--SF-PST