Refugees from third countries are being sent to Equatorial Guinea, where they are often sent back to the very countries they fled For nearly a year, the Hotel Bamy in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, has been Adam’s prison. He is confined alone to a hotel room, under constant watch by the security officers and soldiers of a notoriously…
Page T2From§Eachthe coffee break edition — 2 October 2026
THE FEE
U.S. refugee program offers an expedited lane for white Afrikaners, a prison called Hotel Bamy for the rest.
As it ran on the front
Today we are making a refugee swap, which is not a dish you can get over here, so I shall go slowly. The United States pays Equatorial Guinea to hold refugees from other countries, which then sends many of them back to the countries they fled. The same month, the United States opened 17,500 refugee seats for next year, meant mainly for white Afrikaners.
You will need a nation, Equatorial Guinea; a room in its capital, Malabo, called the Hotel Bamy; a man the Guardian calls Adam, 26, held alone in that room for nearly a year; and a second list, filed the same month, of 17,500 places proposed for 2027.…
The Punk Room. I've seen the one upstairs with the damp through the plaster, and at least there's no guard posted on that landing.
The Fixer Guard. There's a margin in that, properly branded. I could have a man on our landing by Thursday for considerably less than a government rate.
Begin with Adam. He fled forced military conscription in a country he will not name, and arrived instead at the Hotel Bamy, watched by the security officers and soldiers of the government holding him. You will be looking for the paperwork — the charge, the sentence, the thing that explains the year. There is none: no cell to point to, no charges or formal sentence, nothing on paper. Not long ago the officers handcuffed him, beat him, and warned him not to tell anyone.
The Hippie Warned. That's the vibe of this house too, if we're honest — somebody gets told to keep it down, and it's usually the one who did the washing up.
Take the arrangement by both ends and turn it over. One government is paid to hold the people a third country does not want, and once it has finished holding them, it sends them on to the countries they fled in the first place.
The Fixer Turn it over. Repackaging's where the margin sits. I'd rebrand the whole arrangement as storage and sell the empty room as a feature.
Now fold in the other side of the ledger. The President has said the places should go primarily to white Afrikaners, whom he says are oppressed.
The paper on the table here has it as "Trump is disappearing refugees into the hands of torturers – and rewarding them handsomely," which is the Guardian's headline, printed on the second of October, and not mine.
Equatorial Guinea is paid to keep the room in Malabo. The 17,500 places for next year go to the people Washington has chosen instead, and the man in that room is not among them.
The Poet Chosen. There's a word I've been waiting on since the quarterly filed my sonnet under general interest and left it in the tray.
“They call it a refugee program; one line gets expedited, the other line gets a plane ticket back to the man it ran from. That's not immigration policy, that's a rate card with a passport photo stapled to it. Follow where the money actually lands and it ain't on the guy in the hotel room.”
“Look, the administration is just prioritizing refugees facing real, documented persecution — the Afrikaner community has a legitimate case, that's just— the other placements, those are a separate diplomatic arrangement, we don't characterize those as— did I say Hotel Bamy? I don't know what that is.”
The receipts
· The U.S. has 17,500 refugee slots. Trump says they will primarily go to white South Africans. from the morgue, 23 Sep 2026
· Trump pushes to admit 17,500 White Afrikaners from South Africa in 2027 refugee cap from the morgue, 23 Sep 2026
· Trump is hands-off on Houthis and the Saudis aren't happy from the morgue, 16 Sep 2026
· Trump leaves Saudis in the lurch with hands-off response to Houthi advances from the morgue, 16 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.