ABS News Desk | August 5, 2026
YAOUNDÉ — A Cameroonian law firm filed a landmark lawsuit Monday before the Administrative Court of the Centre Region in Yaoundé, challenging the government’s participation in an arrangement with the United States under which 36 nationals from nine African countries — most of them recognised refugees, were deported to Cameroon and have since been held in detention without legal status, identity documents, or a clear path forward.
The suit, filed by FRULAW CHAMBERS on behalf of the 36 applicants, seeks to immediately suspend Cameroon’s implementation of the bilateral deportation arrangement with Washington, compel the government to clarify the detainees’ legal status, and block any forced return of the applicants to countries where they face documented risks of persecution or torture.
The 36 individuals — nationals of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Angola, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Senegal, Zimbabwe, and Morocco — arrived in Yaoundé aboard U.S. deportation flights between January and May 2026. Since their arrival, they have been confined to a holding centre in Yaoundé’s Elig Esono neighbourhood. None have been charged with any crime under Cameroonian law.
Critically, the vast majority of the applicants had been granted “Withholding of Removal” protection by U.S. immigration courts — legal findings that they face a greater-than-likely risk of persecution or torture if returned to their countries of origin. Their transfer to Cameroon, their lawyers argue, effectively circumvented those protections.
“Cameroon cannot be used as a transit point for sending people back to persecution or torture,” said Barrister Joseph Awah Fru of FRULAW CHAMBERS, lead counsel on the case. “We are asking the Court to affirm that no administrative arrangement can override Cameroon’s constitutional, statutory, and international obligations.”
The lawsuit raises four core legal issues that attorneys say are being litigated in Cameroonian courts for the first time. These include potential violations of the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, the principle of non-refoulement — which prohibits returning individuals to places where they face serious harm — unlawful detention without domestic legal authority, and serious questions about the transparency and constitutional legitimacy of the arrangement between Yaoundé and Washington.
Particularly striking is the allegation that the bilateral agreement has never been officially published, ratified, or disclosed to the Cameroonian public. FRULAW CHAMBERS submitted a formal request to Cameroon’s Ministry of External Relations on March 3, 2026, seeking information about the arrangement’s terms, legal basis, and approval process. That request has gone unanswered — constituting, under Cameroonian law, an implicit rejection.
The International Organization for Migration has reportedly been approached by the Cameroonian government to facilitate the onward return of the detainees to their countries of origin — a move the lawsuit argues would directly violate Cameroon’s obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention, the Convention Against Torture, and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Some applicants, the filing notes, also face specific risks inside Cameroon itself, including on grounds of sexual orientation.
The case arrives at a moment of acute institutional fragility in Cameroon, where President Paul Biya has been absent from the country for 58 days amid a prolonged health crisis in Geneva, and where the government’s capacity and willingness to operate transparently has faced growing scrutiny at home and abroad. That a secret arrangement with Washington — one involving the detention of foreign nationals on Cameroonian soil — could be concluded and executed without public disclosure or parliamentary oversight adds a combustible dimension to an already volatile political environment.
The court has not yet indicated when it will rule on the application for interim relief. FRULAW CHAMBERS confirmed that copies of all court filings have been officially received and receipted.
