Ukraine’s Shameful Treatment Of African Students Should Not Be Covered Up…

With around 4,000 Nigerians, most­ly stu­dents, “strand­ed” in Ukraine, the Nigerian gov­ern­ment said, there have been reports of Polish offi­cials refus­ing Africans entry into Poland. “It is para­mount that every­one is treat­ed with dig­ni­ty and with­out favor,” Nigeria’s pres­i­den­tial office and res­i­dence said in a state­ment on Twitter. “All who flee a con­flict sit­u­a­tion have the same right to the safe pas­sage under UN Convention and the col­or of their pass­port or their skin should make no dif­fer­ence.” South Africa’s head of pub­lic diplo­ma­cy echoed sim­i­lar con­cerns that South African stu­dents and oth­er Africans “have been bad­ly treat­ed” at Ukraine’s bor­der with Poland.
The South African for­eign office offi­cial shared a video of a woman at a Ukrainian bor­der town say­ing Africans wait­ing to cross were being “pushed,” “shoved,” and “denied access,” forced to wait in the cold as Ukrainians got “spe­cial treatment.”

Days into the mas­sive refugee cri­sis cre­at­ed by Russia’s war on Ukraine, the Ukrainian gov­ern­ment has pub­licly acknowl­edged that African immi­grants seek­ing to flee the vio­lence have faced racist, dis­parate treat­ment com­pared to white Ukrainians. On Tuesday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweet­ed that Russia’s inva­sion had “affect­ed Ukrainians and non-cit­i­zens in many dev­as­tat­ing ways. “Africans seek­ing evac­u­a­tion are our friends and need to have equal oppor­tu­ni­ties to return to their home coun­tries safe­ly,” the offi­cial said, adding that Ukraine’s gov­ern­ment “spares no effort to solve the problem.”
There have been numer­ous reports in recent days of African stu­dents and oth­er immi­grants fac­ing racist treat­ment as they seek to flee cities under attack. This includes Black peo­ple being kept from board­ing bus­es and trains even as white Ukrainians were able to and being kept wait­ing hours in the cold at the bor­der with Poland.
Earlier Tuesday, the United Nations’ high com­mis­sion­er for refugees, Filippo Grandi, also rec­og­nized the “dif­fer­ent treat­ment” between Ukrainians and “non-Ukrainians,” as he put it. “There should be absolute­ly no dis­crim­i­na­tion between Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians, Europeans and non-Europeans,” the U.N. offi­cial said, adding that the inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion “plans to inter­vene to try to ensure that every­body receives equal treat­ment.” “Everyone is flee­ing from the same risks,” he added.
Several African gov­ern­ments have con­demned the racism Africans have faced as they’ve sought to leave the war-torn coun­try. On Monday, the Nigerian gov­ern­ment called out “unfor­tu­nate reports” of Ukrainian police “refus­ing to allow Nigerians to board bus­es and trains” head­ed toward Ukraine’s bor­der with Poland. South Africa’s head of pub­lic diplo­ma­cy echoed sim­i­lar con­cerns that South African stu­dents and oth­er Africans “have been bad­ly treat­ed” at Ukraine’s bor­der with Poland. Over 600,000 peo­ple have fled Ukraine since Russia attacked last week, the U.N. said.
The African Union, which rep­re­sents the 55 coun­tries of the African con­ti­nent, said Monday that “reports that Africans are sin­gled out for unac­cept­able dis­sim­i­lar treat­ment would be shock­ing­ly racist and in breach [of] inter­na­tion­al law.” The nations urged all coun­tries to “show the same empa­thy and sup­port to all peo­ple flee­ing war notwith­stand­ing their racial identity.”