LONDON, 20 Sept. - (ANA) - On 4 July, Jose Manuel Rodriguez-Quinones, Kyaw Mya, Thongxay Nilakout, and Tuan Thanh Phan were deported from the US to Juba, South Sudan, transiting through a US military base in Djibouti, as part of the United States government’s mass deportation campaign and have since been arbitrarily detained in an undisclosed location. No official information regarding the four men’s exact current whereabouts has been shared with their lawyers. 

 

Amnesty International calls on the South Sudanese authorities to immediately disclose the whereabouts of Jose Manuel Rodriguez-Quinones, Kyaw Mya, Thongxay Nilakout, and Tuan Thanh

Phan, grant them unmonitored and unfettered access to their legal representatives, including local counsel, and immediately clarify the legal grounds of their detention. 

 

If there is no breach of the principle of nonrefoulement, we urge the states of the men’s countries of origin to expedite their repatriation, Amnesty suggested.

 

Detention without a basis in law is a violation under international human rights law. Detention with no or limited access to legal representation is also a human rights law violation and could provide a context in which torture and other ill-treatment may occur, increasing the concern for the men’s health and wellbeing.   - (ANA) - 

 

AB/ANA/20 September 2025 - - -