DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The United States on Saturday deported dozens of people to the Central African Republic, including an Afghan whose brothers collaborated with the U.S. military, his lawyer and an advocacy group said.
The Afghan man, who is in his early twenties, was granted protection against deportation to Afghanistan by a U.S. judge due to fears of persecution by the Taliban, his lawyer Alma David said.
His family in Afghanistan had received threats from the Taliban because of the work performed by the brothers in support of the U.S. military, according to court documents seen by The Associated Press.
One of the Afghan man’s brothers lives in the United States and served in the Afghan National Army, which collaborated with the U.S military before the Taliban seized power in 2021, David said.
Another one of his brothers was a pilot trained by the U.S. and was killed by the Taliban, she added.
The deportation flight which landed in Central African Republic’s capital Bangui on Saturday, included 12 Afghans and eight Iranians, as well as several people from Nepal and Nicaragua, said Savi Arvey, director of policy, refugee and immigrant rights at Human Rights First.
Under a series of often secret agreements, the Trump administration has deported thousands of people to two dozen countries that aren’t their own as it pushes ahead with its immigration crackdown, advocates say. Immigration lawyers say the practice is being used as a legal loophole to indirectly return some asylum seekers to countries they fled. The flight on Saturday is the second to the Central African Republic since June, which carried two dozen migrants, including an Iranian woman facing persecution in her home country.
FILE - An arial view of Bangui, Central African Republic on March. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, File)
Ukrainian forces fired more than 1,000 drones at Russia overnight, including hundreds launched toward Moscow, officials said Sunday as the Kremlin was wrapping up the third and last day of its parliamentary elections.
Moscow’s mayor described the wave of drones as the “largest ever” attack on the Russian capital and said there had been damage to a Moscow oil refinery and a residential building.
Across the wider Moscow region, the attack killed two people and wounded 20, local Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said. The dead were a 74-year-old man and a 44-year-old woman, he said.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on the attack.
The voting in Russia was the country's first wartime parliamentary election — a balloting that was virtually devoid of opposition to President Vladimir Putin’s policies and is all but certain to cement the Kremlin’s dominance.
Russia also held voting in four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed after the war began but still doesn’t fully control, and in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. Kyiv has denounced the action as illegal.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said that its forces shot down 1,100 Ukrainian drones across the country, as well as over the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and the waters of the Black Sea.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that 450 drones had been destroyed en route to the Russian capital, and that the attack had damaged the Moscow Oil Refinery and a residential building.
He said the “unprecedented attack” on the capital was an attempt to disrupt the elections.
"The enemy failed in this regard," he said.
In this photo provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, Ukrainian soldiers prepare an FPV drone to fire towards Russian positions in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026. (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
In this photo provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, a Ukrainian soldier prepares an FPV drone to fire towards Russian positions in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026. (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
In this photo provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, a Ukrainian soldier prepares an FPV drone to fire towards Russian positions in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026. (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
In this photo provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, a Ukrainian soldier prepares an FPV drone to fire towards Russian positions in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026. (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
