Guantánamo Resettlements in Turmoil as Oman Forcibly Repatriates Yemenis Given New Homes Between 2015 and 2017
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In genuinely dispiriting news, Spencer Ackerman has reported, via his Forever Wars website, that the majority of the 28 former Guantánamo prisoners from Yemen who were resettled in Oman between 2015 and 2017 have been forcibly repatriated to their home country over the last few weeks.
The news is particularly dispiriting because, until now, the Sultanate of Oman had appeared to be one of the most successful countries involved in resettling former Guantánamo prisoners, all unanimously approved for release by high-level US government review processes, but who could not be safely repatriated.
This was either because the State Department regarded it as unsafe for them to be sent home (on the basis of human rights concerns, or concerns about their potential recruitment or targeting by forces hostile to the US), or because provisions inserted by Republicans into the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) proscribe certain countries, including Yemen, from receiving their citizens (again, for reasons of national security), or, in a few cases, because they were essentially stateless.
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