Burundi, one of the world’s poorest countries, confirmed on Thursday it had signed an agreement with the United States to take in third-country nationals deported by Donald Trump’s administration.
An AFP investigation in early 2026 revealed that the United States had encouraged around 35 countries, mostly in Africa, to accept deportees in return for aid amounting to millions of dollars, and had threatened visa restrictions if these countries refused.
Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye has “recently agreed… that Burundi will take in migrants turned away by the United States — but only those who are not being prosecuted for crimes or suspected of terrorism”, the head of state’s spokeswoman, Nancy-Ninette Mutoni, told AFP.
Washington has been seeking new deals with African governments, requiring services in return for money, since Trump dismantled USAID (the US Agency for International Development), which represented 42 percent of the world’s foreign aid.
Such services may include access to the population’s personal health data or its rare earth metals.
An international investigation published in September by the Forbidden Stories consortium estimated that Washington had already deported 25,000 people to 35 third countries to which they have no connections, under secret agreements.
Burundi, a small landlocked country in Africa’s Great Lakes region, is the world’s poorest country, according to the World Bank ranking from 2024, and suffers recurring fuel shortages.
Mutoni said “meticulous preparations” were underway to take in the deportees and no date had been set to put the deal into effect.
“We need to arrange a place to accommodate them, provide for their basic needs and work out how they will live alongside the local population,” she said.
On Monday, around 20 independent United Nations experts said US deportations of thousands of people to third countries were “triggering a cascade of human rights violations”, heightening the risk of abuses like torture, slavery and trafficking.
“All states and territories involved must immediately halt these arrangements,” they said.
“In many cases, these third countries are themselves engulfed in conflict, with their own populations facing displacement, starvation and debilitating poverty.”
