KAMPALA – Uganda has agreed to receive migrants who do not qualify to remain in the United States, a foreign ministry official said Thursday, in Washington’s latest attempt to speed up deportations.US President Donald Trump’s administration has negotiated arrangements to send people to third countries, among them El Salvador and Eswatini, which have been fiercely criticised by rights groups.At roughly 1.7 million Uganda already hosts the largest refugee population in Africa, according to the United Nations, and is the latest east African country to announce such a deal with Washington, joining Rwanda and South Sudan.

“The agreement is in respect of Third Country Nationals who may not be granted asylum in the United States, but are reluctant to or may have concerns about returning to their countries of origin,” the Ugandan foreign affairs ministry’s permanent secretary, Vincent Bagiire, said in a statement on X.

He said it was a “temporary arrangement”, which specified that “individuals with criminal records and unaccompanied minors will not be accepted”.Bagiire also stated Uganda’s preference that “individuals from African countries shall be the ones transferred to Uganda”.“The two parties are working out the detailed modalities on how the agreement shall be implemented,” he added.

The UN’s refugee agency notes that Uganda — led by President Museveni Yoweri, who has held power for almost four decades — has a “progressive refugee policy, maintaining an open-door approach to asylum”.However the country also saw a “significant” increase in arrivals in 2024, it said, primarily as a result of Sudan’s civil war, but also unrest in South Sudan and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.Kampala’s announcement of the agreement comes a day after the country denied any such deal existed.

– Nampa/AFP