‘Waiting for us to crack’: In Cameroon, the victims of Trump’s deportations face uncertain fates

“Welcome to the temporary migrant shelter.” In a residential neighbourhood in the Cameroonian capital of Yaoundé, a government compound has been transformed into a place for people with nowhere else to go. Behind its high clay-coloured walls, 20-odd people share dorm rooms sparsely furnished with bunk beds. Several days after her arrival, Barbara* is still struggling to get her bearings. “I feel really bad, I have no family here, I don’t know anyone, and most people only speak French,” she said in English. The young woman had fled persecution in her homeland Ethiopia to the US, hoping to build a new life for herself. But in April this year, she was deported without warning by US immigration authorities to the Central African country of Cameroon, a country utterly unknown to her. ‘They put me on a plane, and I landed here’ Born in the state of Tigray in the north of Ethiopia, Barbara left her country after war broke out between federal government forces and the region’s Tigray People’s Liberation Front. The conflict is believed to have killed more than 600,000 people between 2020 and 2024. Fleeing persecution, she travelled to Brazil at the end of 2024 before making her way to the U...