CUBANS, VENEZUELANS AND COLOMBIANS AMONG 1,200 US DEPORTEES TO BE FLOWN TO LIBERIA. (PHOTO).

 Cubans, Venezuelans and Colombians among 1,200 US deportees to be flown to Liberia

People deported by the US to Liberia will mostly hail from Latin American countries including Cuba and Venezuela, Liberia's information minister told Reuters, as authorities received the first deportation flight.

The West African nation announced on Tuesday that it had agreed to accept up to 1,200 third-country deportees from the US in the next 12 months, the latest of several deals the Trump administration has implemented on the continent to accelerate removals.

A government statement on Tuesday said the deportees would come from "African and Western Hemisphere ​countries", without specifying, while the State Department did not provide details on nationalities.

Liberia's information minister, Jerolinmek Piah, told Reuters that "most of the people are from Latin American countries. Some from Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia and others."

'Guests'

He said the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN refugee agency would help provide services for them, as has been the case elsewhere in Africa.

Though details of the Trump administration's third-country deportation arrangements are not often publicised, Liberia's agreement to accept up to 1,200 deportees makes it one of the largest on the African continent, where the US has also reached deals with Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Ghana and Sierra Leone.