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Nigerian protestors in India after ethnic riots against them

Racial tensions continue to rise in India amid attacks against Nigerians, Africans

April 5, 2017
1 min read

In a joint statement this week from envoys of multiple African nations in Delhi, the African Heads of Mission said Indian authorities had failed to “sufficiently condemn” or take “visible deterring measures,” against “xenophobic and racial” attacks on Nigerian students that occurred in the city last Monday.

Hundreds of residents of Greater Noida, outside New Delhi, had gone on a violent rampage, attacking Africans for the death of a local teenage boy from a suspected drug overdose.

The 19-year old Indian victim’s parents and members of the community have blamed Nigerian students for supplying drugs in the area. Local police say the cause of the student’s death remains unknown. Five Nigerian men were arrested in the case but released the very next day. Indian police said they had booked over 1,000 suspects in connection with the attacks. They said several people had been identified in video clips of the attacks.

Nigerian students have been accused of cannibalism, and their refrigerators searched, Huffington Post India reported.

“This is not the first time this would happen, Nigerians have suffered similar attacks in the past,” said the Nigerian permanent secretary at the ministry of foreign affairs, Olushola Enikanolaiye, after meeting Nagabushana Reddy, the Indian ambassador. “India should ensure the immediate arrest and prosecution of those behind the attacks.”

Indian external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj denounced the violence, calling for an investigation of the matter. “The government is committed to ensuring safety and security of all foreigners in India,” Swaraj said. “People from Africa, including students and youths, remain our valued partners.”

A female Nigerian student was attacked last Wednesday, five Nigerian students were assaulted in a mall, and a Kenyan woman was dragged out of a taxi and beaten by a mob, as reported by the Hindustan Times.

In early February, a mob attacked a 21-year-old Tanzanian woman as she drove with friends in the city in Karnataka, beating her, tearing off her clothing, and igniting the car.

“You all look alike and should get the black man who ran over a woman in the area,” the victim alleged her attacker said.

Last year, a female student from Tanzania was beaten and stripped in Bangalore by an angry mob, a Congolese teacher died in an attack in Delhi, followed a week later when men with cricket bats attacked six Africans, including two women and a priest who was on his way home with his wife and baby.

The incidents continue to spark racial tensions between Nigerians, Africans and Indians.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt6iwRrCSSc

 

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