Cuban, Peruvian, and Venezuelan women who have recently arrived in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, are living in a state of total helplessness after being deported from the United States without documents, phones, or any form of legal protection, according to videos published on Instagram by Yasmany Moreno de Armas, the Cuban migrant who has become the main figure of humanitarian support for deportees stranded in that African country.
The images and testimonies, shared on Sunday and Monday, show a group of women from different nationalities, several of whom are Cuban, who arrived on recent deportation flights without knowing their actual destination. “We were told we were going to Miami, then that we were going to Mexico, and in the end we arrived here, ended up in Africa,” recounted one of the deported women in front of Moreno's camera.
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Another woman from the group was even more direct: "They told us it was for Miami, and here we are in Central Africa, sir. This situation is horrible. This is a kidnapping."
The testimonies describe a systematic pattern during the transfers: confiscation of passports and phones by the agents, physical violence, and hours of chained travel. One of the deportees, identified as "Yari," who had been living in Las Vegas for four years, recounted that she was beaten by several male agents when she tried to resist.
"I was hit, three of them grabbed me, they pulled my hair, they pushed me against the windows of the plane, it was horrible, they dragged me down by force among men," she declared.
Moreno showed in his videos the swollen feet of some of the women, who were unable to walk upon arrival after being chained by their hands and feet for over 25 hours. Among those deported is also a Venezuelan woman nearly 70 years old.
The situation of vulnerability is extreme. Without identity documents, women are exposed to arbitrary detention, kidnapping, or sexual assault by local police. Moreno himself has been kidnapped several times since arriving in Bangui in August 2026.
"I am a man, but she is a woman and they can attack her, do a thousand things to her. She doesn't have a phone to speak with her family and her children," Moreno warned in one of the videos.
The U.S. Department of State has maintained the highest alert level for the Central African Republic —Level 4: “Do Not Travel”— due to active armed conflict, militia presence, kidnappings, and terrorism. Moreno also reported a shooting that occurred the night before the arrival of the last group, near the building where he is staying.
In the face of institutional inaction, Moreno has taken on a leadership role that goes well beyond his own situation of helplessness. He shares his money and food, raises funds online, visits detention centers to monitor the status of migrants, and manages humanitarian visas to relocate deportees in Latin American countries. This Monday, he published a video showing five phones he bought for the women in the group thanks to donations from his followers.
"Here I am with the girls, I bought them five phones, look, each one has their own phone. Thank you very much, gentlemen, thank you for the support," Moreno said in the recording.
The arrival of new groups does not stop. Between October 21 and 24, mass deportation flights arrived in Bangui, including a flight from Alexandria, Louisiana, with 90 migrants, 69 of whom were Cuban. According to data from Human Rights Watch, between January 2025 and August 2026, the U.S. expelled over 500 individuals to African countries that were not their countries of origin, as part of the Trump administration's deportation policy to "third countries."
Moreno remains on the continent supporting the new groups that continue to arrive, while his own case remains unresolved: in September, he was informed that his file might contain errors and that he could return to the U.S. within 30 to 60 days, but that return had not been confirmed by the time this report was finalized.
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