Nigeria & South Africa To Jointly Monitor Xenophobia

The Nigerian and South African governments have announced that they would jointly launch an ‘early warning system’ in order to track and hopefully prevent xenophobic attacks in the two countries.

The initiative will be launched to help protect Nigerian migrants, who have been the target of vicious xenophobic attacks in South Africa over the last few years.

While there have been numerous bouts of xenophobic attacks against Nigerians in South Africa over the last couple of years, a new wave of attacks in the past month has prompted the two countries to work together to prevent further violence.

Over the last month, several Nigerians, along with other foreign Africans, were attacked in the north of South Africa by the locals.

South Africans have defended their actions against the Nigerians and other Africans, saying that they only attacked those who were running brothels and drug dens.

The Nigerian foreign minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, met with South Africa’s foreign minister, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, in Pretoria, South Africa’s administrative capital, on Monday, to discuss the implementation of the early warning system.

“The early warning centre would allow us keep each other abreast of issues and help prevent violence [sic],” South Africa’s foreign minister said.

According to the two foreign ministers, the new forum at the helm of the ‘early warning system’ will meet every three months to discuss plans to prevent xenophobic attacks.

This forum will consist of immigration officials, civil society groups, and business associations from both Nigeria and South Africa.