Lawyers say Ebola patient placed in Equatorial Guinea hotel housing US deportees

A group of 17 people deported to Equatorial Guinea from the United States said Thursday that they are being detained in a hotel in Malabo alongside at least one suspected Ebola patient.

Authenticated videos show medical personnel in hazmat suits appearing to disinfect themselves outside the Bamy Hotel and on one of the floors inside.

The migrants from nations including Angola, Mauritania, and Ethiopia were sent there under the Trump administration’s opaque third-country deportation deal.

International lawyers representing them and two of the deportees said a man suspected of having the deadly virus was brought to the hotel last week and placed on a floor below them.

In an interview, the migrants said they say they were told by a doctor that they should be careful, but were provided with no further details.

One of the deportees said a woman suspected of having Ebola was brought to the quarantine floor on Sunday.

The migrants spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

So far, no cases or suspected cases have been reported in the country which does not share a border with the Democratic Republic of Congo where the outbreak began and is roughly 1,425 kms away.

The DRC is currently battling a rare strain of the Ebola virus that has killed over 600 in an outbreak that was first announced in May.

Equatorial Guinea is one of at least eight other African nations that the US has struck agreements with to accept third-country deportees.

Following a $7.5 million deal, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo turned a hotel owned by his family in Malabo on Bioko island into a detention centre.