A TOP IMMIGRATION and Customs Enforcement official on Thursday detailed appalling and unsafe conditions faced by a group of deportees, and the government officials guarding them, at a U.S. military base in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti.

Melissa Harper, the No. 2 official at ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, bemoaned a lack of adequate security equipment at the U.S. base Camp Lemonnier. In a sworn court declaration, she described illness among the detainees and government agents, inadequate medical care, and 100-degree outdoor temperatures. She detailed risks of malaria, exposure to smoke from nearby burn pits, and potential attacks from militants in Yemen.

“The aliens are currently being held in a conference room in a converted Conex shipping container on the U.S. Naval base in Camp Lemonnier,” said Harper in a sworn declaration in federal court in Massachusetts. “This has been identified as the only viable place to house the aliens.”

GET THE REST AT THE INTERCEPT