At least 130 Nigerian citizens in South Africa have asked their \u200bgovernment to fly them home after \u200ca protests there targeting foreigners, Nigeria\u2019s Foreign Minister, Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, said.<\/p>\n
There were the first to apply to a \u200bnew scheme to repatriate citizens launched \u200bby Nigeria’s government, Odumegwu-Ojukwu said on Sunday, \u2060amid fears that confrontations in South Africa \u200bcould escalate.<\/p>\n
Protesters held rallies in Pretoria and Johannesburg \u200blast week, demanding tougher action against illegal immigration, saying undocumented foreign nationals were putting pressure on jobs, security \u200band public services.<\/p>\n
Campaigners for migrant rights say\u00a0foreigners \u200bhave long been scapegoated\u00a0in South Africa for its economic \u200cwoes.<\/p>\n
South \u2060Africa last month promised to crack down on anyone carrying out\u00a0xenophobic attacks\u00a0after Ghana and other African countries reported that their nationals had \u200bfaced violence \u200band discrimination.<\/p>\n
More \u2060protests were planned on May 4 and May 8 and Nigeria \u200bwould be watching developments closely, the \u200bgovernment \u2060said.<\/p>\n
It had already summoned South Africa\u2019s High Commissioner in Abuja over the situation, and its diplomatic \u2060missions \u200bin South Africa are working \u200bwith local authorities to reduce risks to Nigerians, the minister \u200bsaid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At least 130 Nigerian citizens in South Africa have asked their \u200bgovernment to fly them home after \u200ca protests there targeting foreigners, Nigeria\u2019s Foreign Minister, Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, said. There were the first to apply to a \u200bnew scheme to repatriate citizens launched \u200bby Nigeria’s government, Odumegwu-Ojukwu said on Sunday, \u2060amid fears that confrontations in South […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20767,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377,1129,30,27],"tags":[175,122],"class_list":["post-20766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-migration","category-security","category-southern-africa","category-west-africa","tag-nigeria","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20766"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20768,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20766\/revisions\/20768"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}