Ghana will receive another 40 West Africans deported from the United States in the coming days, Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said, after the government revealed last week a deal had been struck with Washington.

Deporting people to third countries instead of their home nations has been a hallmark of US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants, notably by sending hundreds to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

Ghana President John Mahama announced last week that 14 deportees from the region had been sent to the country, sparking questions over their current whereabouts and pushback from the political opposition.

“On humanitarian grounds, pan-African solidarity, let us accept our fellow West Africans. And let’s make the point that Ghana is your home,” Ablakwa told Ghanaian broadcaster Channel1 TV late Wednesday.

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He said the deportees, who are vetted before arrival, will be allowed to remain in Ghana temporarily, per regional visa-free travel rules, or return to their home countries.

The Ghanaian government previously said that many of the deported west Africans had already returned to their home countries — though lawyers in the United States say at least some of them are being held in military detention in Ghana in “cruel conditions”.

Five Nigerians and Gambians deported to Ghana were granted protection from deportation by immigration authorities in the United States, their lawyers said in a Tuesday statement.

If they continue on to their countries of origin, they risk “torture, persecution or death”, said Lee Gelernt, of the American Civil Liberties Union.

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In an unprecedented move, Trump has overseen the deportation of hundreds of people to Panama, including some who were sent away before they could have their asylum applications processed.

Hundreds have also been sent to El Salvador, with the US administration invoking an 18th-century law to remove people it has accused of being Venezuelan gang members.

Some were sent despite US judges ordering the planes carrying them to turn around.

The deportation agreement with Ghana comes as Washington has hiked tariffs on Ghanaian goods and restricted visas issued to its nationals.

Donald Trump warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “really let me down” as he met Prime Minister Keir Starmer for wide-ranging talks on Thursday, the final day of the US president’s historic UK state visit.

A day after King Charles III treated Trump to royal pageantry at Windsor Castle, the Republican flew to Starmer’s Chequers country residence for talks on thorny issues, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Starmer has positioned himself as a bridge between Trump and European allies, particularly on the war in Ukraine, in a bid to secure more commitments for Kyiv from the US leader.

And his calls, repeated again on Thursday, for more international pressure on Putin appear to be gaining more traction with Trump, who slammed the Russian leader for continuing the war despite his efforts to stop the fighting.

Trump told a post-talks press conference that he had thought the Ukraine conflict would be the “easiest” to end “because of my relationship with President Putin, but he’s let me down. He’s really let me down.”

He urged European nations to stop buying Russian oil, saying that “if the price of oil comes down, Putin’s going to drop out of that war.”

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– ‘Unbreakable bond’ –

Starmer’s warm tone with the 79-year-old Trump has won some leniency in the president’s tariff war, with the British leader saying Thursday the trade deal the two countries signed in May was the first by the US and also “the best”.

But Trump said that the pair had “one of our few disagreements” about the UK’s plan to recognise a Palestinian state.

The US leader also offered strong thoughts on illegal migration in the UK, revealing that “I told the Prime Minister I would stop it”, even if it meant calling in the military.

Earlier in the day, Trump hailed America’s “unbreakable bond” with Britain as he and Starmer signed a huge tech deal, boosting ties in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and nuclear energy.

At the signing ceremony attended by a host of US tech CEOs, Labour leader Starmer said he and Republican Trump were “leaders who genuinely like each other.”

The deal comes on the back of pledges of £150 billion ($205 billion) of investment into the UK from US giants including Microsoft, Google and Blackstone.

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Trump had earlier said goodbye to King Charles at Windsor, calling him a “great gentleman and a great king” as he left the castle heading to Chequers.

Appealing to Trump’s admiration for British wartime leader Winston Churchill, Starmer led the US president on a tour of Churchill artifacts at Chequers.

Starmer is facing political troubles at home after sacking his ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson, over his connections to disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Sex offender Epstein has also haunted Trump over recent weeks, with further revelations about the pair’s relationship in the 1990s and early 2000s.

– ‘Highest honours’ –

Having negotiated the potentially perilous press conference relatively unscathed, Starmer can claim some justification for granting Trump an unprecedented second state visit, with investment deals and deepening alignment on Ukraine to show for the diplomatic effort.

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Trump was Wednesday lavished with the full pomp and circumstance of the British state — the second time it has done so, after his first visit in 2019.

“This is truly one of the highest honours of my life,” Trump said at the state banquet.

The king meanwhile hailed Trump’s peace efforts and support of Ukraine, after a day featuring gun salutes, soldiers on horseback, and bagpipes, all designed to appeal to the US president’s fascination with royalty.

But he also stressed to Trump the need to protect the environment for “our children, grandchildren, and those who come after them”.

Melania Trump remained in Windsor on Thursday morning, where she met scouts with Princess Catherine, and viewed Queen Mary’s Doll’s House with Queen Camilla.

The US first lady’s husband was kept far from the British public, with an estimated 5,000 people marching through central London Wednesday to protest against his visit.

Trump was due to return to Washington later Thursday.

India has issued a health alert after infections and deaths caused by a rare water-borne “brain-eating” amoeba doubled compared to last year in the southern state of Kerala.

Numbers are still tiny but Altaf Ali, a doctor who is part of a government task force to arrest the spread, told AFP that officials were “conducting tests on a large scale across the state to detect and treat cases”.

Officials reported 19 deaths and 72 infections of the Naegleria fowleri amoeba this year, including nine deaths and 24 cases in September alone.

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Last year, the amoeba killed nine people out of 36 reported cases.

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says it is often called a “brain-eating amoeba” because it can “infect the brain and destroy brain tissue”.

If the amoeba reaches the brain, it can cause an infection that kills over 95 per cent of those affected.

Infections are “very rare but nearly always fatal”, the CDC notes.

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The amoeba lives in warm lakes and rivers and is contracted by contaminated water entering the nose. It does not spread from person to person.

The World Health Organisation says that symptoms include headache, fever and vomiting, which rapidly progresses to “seizures, altered mental status, hallucinations, and coma”.

“It’s worrying that new cases this year have emerged from across the state, as opposed to specific pockets in the past,” Ali said.

Since 1962, nearly 500 cases have been reported worldwide, mostly in the United States, India, Pakistan, and Australia.

AFP