South Africa’s High Commissioner to Ghana Lulu Xingwana has attributed the latest xenophobic attacks in South Africa to poverty.
She is, therefore, urging African governments to provide jobs for their citizens with the hope that would dissuade them from “flocking” into South Africa for greener pastures.
“…This starts from poverty,” Xingwana said of the attacks on Accra based Starr FM. “All of our countries must create jobs and opportunities for their people so that we don’t all flock to one country because one country would not be able to cope. If all of us were coming to Ghana, would you cope? Would you?”
Xingwana said attributing the violence to hatred of other African nationals was wrong saying: “That’s why I say it’s crime, it’s poverty, in Ghana, in South Africa, in Zimbabwe, in Nigeria, everywhere. And then people will leave these countries and any other country and think they can find something in South Africa.”
“We have a responsibility, all of us to create jobs and opportunities for our people and not look at one country to do it,” she added.
Xingwana was reacting to the latest xenophobic attacks in South Africa that have left five dead in riots in Johannesburg, where foreign-owned shops were targeted on Monday—a recurrence of the 2015 attacks that left at least seven people killed.
Former Ghana President John Mahama condemned the attacks earlier today in a Twitter post, calling on the government of the Rainbow nation to “take responsibility for these inhuman actions and implement urgent steps to prevent these attacks from recurring in the future.”
Zimbabwe has also condemned the attacks as barbaric saying: “It clearly offends the spirit of African unity and solidarity as espoused by the African Union Founding fathers in Addis Ababa in 1963.”
No Ghanaian has so far been attacked in the xenophobic insurrection in South Africa, Ghana’s Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Charles Owiredu has said.
Source: Daily Mail GH
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