France, Sept. 21 -- Stepping onto the tarmac at Bangui airport in the Central African Republic for the first time, Nika*, a 32-year-old Iranian woman, was in shock.

It was the evening of 12 June 2026. Nika had just spent 12 hours aboard a plane specially chartered by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deport her, alongside around 10 other people - Syrians, Georgians, Afghans and Iraqis.

Her legs had been shackled and her hands cuffed to a chain fixed around her waist, even when she tried to eat.

Officers who met her in Bangui communicated through gestures. None spoke her language.

"I didn't understand anything that was happening to me. I wondered whether I was going to be sent to another prison," Nika recounted.

She had ...