New Delhi: The heads of missions of African countries in India have slammed recent physical attacks on their nationals in India as “xenophobic and racial” in nature, saying the government in New Delhi took no “known, sufficient and visible” deterrent action despite such incidents happening in the past.
In a strongly-worded press statement that is set to embarrass New Delhi, the envoys of 44 African nations, who recently held a “special” meeting agreed to call for an independent investigation by the UN Human Rights Council as well as other human rights bodies, and also to comprehensively report the matter to the Commission of the African Union.
The envoys have also called for a condemnation of the attacks from the highest authorities in India and the state government.
The statement follows an attack on Nigerian students at Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh, just across the border from New Delhi, after a schoolboy’s death was linked to drugs.
The development comes even as India has been trying to market itself as a destination for higher education and cheap medical tourism for countries in Africa, where India’s strategic rival China has made huge inroads through large infrastructure projects, including football stadia and airports.
Residents of Greater Noida suspected that Africans living there had sold the schoolboy drugs but five Nigerian students who were arrested in connection with the case were released after police found no evidence.
Delhi labelled the incident “deplorable” but the incident made headlines in Nigeria and India’s ambassador was summoned for questioning in Abuja.
In the press statement on 31 March, the African envoys condemned the attacks and expressed their deep concern as they noted that these “reprehensible events, both outstanding and unresolved cases against Africans, were not sufficiently condemned by the Indian authorities.”
Past instances of attacks on Africans in India include a brutal attack on a Congolese teacher last year after an argument over hiring an autorickshaw in Delhi. The teacher later died of his injuries.
In 2013, a Nigerian national was killed by a mob in Goa while in 2014, Delhi’s former law minister Somnath Bharti was accused of harassing African women after he led a vigilante mob through an area of New Delhi, alleging they were sex workers.
In 2015 India hosted delegations from all 54 African nations at the third India-Africa Forum summit aimed at reshaping its ties with the resource-rich continent.
