MBABANE, Eswatini, Oct 22, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - A Cuban man deported by the United States to the tiny southern African kingdom of Eswatini has started a hunger strike, his lawyer said Wednesday.

Roberto Mosquera del Peral was among five men sent to the kingdom in July under a deal with the US seen by AFP in which Eswatini agreed to accept up to 160 deportees in exchange for $5.1 million to "build its border and migration management capacity".

One of the men, 62-year-old Jamaican Orville Etoria, was repatriated to Jamaica in September but ten more deportees arrived on October 6, according to the Eswatini government which says it intends to return them all to their home countries.

They are all jailed in a maximum-security prison without any charge, with no access to legal counsel, according to an AFP investigation.

"Roberto Mosquera del Peral ... has been on an indefinite hunger strike since Thursday, October 15, 2025," his US-based lawyer Alma David said in a statement released Wednesday.

"My client is arbitrarily detained, and now his life is on the line," she said.

- 'Human consequences' -

Eswatini, Africa's last absolute monarchy, is among several "third countries" to have accepted migrants deported from the US, with others sent to Ghana, Rwanda and South Sudan in shadowy deals criticised by rights groups as "human trafficking".

Washington said the first group of men deported to the kingdom had been convicted of crimes in the United States, including child rape and murder, but their lawyers told AFP that all five had long finished serving their sentences.

In Mosquera's case, while the Trump administration said he had been jailed for homicide, AFP found that his most serious conviction was only for attempted murder and he had been out of jail for years.

The deportees' lawyers said the men have only been allowed to talk to their families in minutes-long video calls once a week under the watch of armed guards, and a local attorney has been refused access to them.

"The fact that my client has been driven to such drastic action highlights that he and the other 13 men must be released from prison," David said Wednesday. "The governments of the United States and Eswatini must take responsibility for the real human consequences of their deal."

The ten new arrivals deported in October included nationals of Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Cuba, Chad, Ethiopia and Congo, according to David.