Nigeria said South Africa had \u200bagreed to bring to justice those responsible for attacks on foreign nationals, while \u200cAbuja was compiling compensation claims for losses suffered by Nigerians as both countries pledged to tone down rhetoric over the violence.<\/p>\n
The commitments followed\u00a0talks in Abuja between Nigeria’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Sola Enikanolaiye, and South \u200bAfrican International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola on Monday, aimed at easing tensions sparked by \u200battacks on Nigerian nationals in South Africa.<\/p>\n
South African vigilante groups have repeatedly \u2060targeted foreign African nationals and looted migrant-owned businesses in recent months.\u00a0Anti-immigrant protesters\u00a0marched in several \u200bcities in June, calling for undocumented migrants to leave the country.<\/p>\n
Nigeria\u00a0repatriated\u00a0approximately 1,490 citizens following the \u200bunrest, Nigeria’s foreign ministry said on July 16.<\/p>\n
The violence has reignited a longstanding source of friction between Africa’s two biggest economies.<\/p>\n
“We agreed that we should de-escalate the tension that had erupted between our two countries and our \u200bpeople,” Enikanolaiye said after the talks, adding that both sides would lower the temperature of \u200bpublic discourse and preserve ties built through decades of cooperation.<\/p>\n
He said South Africa had assured Nigeria that perpetrators \u200cof the \u2060attacks would be prosecuted and that Abuja was compiling claims for property losses suffered by Nigerians that could form the basis of future compensation discussions.<\/p>\n
Nigeria also sought stronger safeguards for its citizens, including an early warning system, increased police protection in violence-prone areas and accountability for those \u200bbehind the attacks, he \u200bsaid.<\/p>\n
Lamola said the South \u2060African government condemned “all forms of xenophobia” and stressed that no individual had the right to take the law into their own hands.<\/p>\n
“The protest and \u200bthe violence that is happening is not state-sponsored, it is not \u200bcondoned by the \u2060South African government,” he said.<\/p>\n
Lamola said Pretoria remained concerned about criminal activities allegedly involving some Nigerian nationals, including drug trafficking and cybercrime, while stressing that such offences should be addressed through the legal \u2060system \u200brather than vigilante action.<\/p>\n
“We have agreed that all issues of \u200bcriminality must be dealt with in terms of the law,” he said, adding that authorities were pursuing arrests and prosecutions \u200blinked to the violence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigeria said South Africa had \u200bagreed to bring to justice those responsible for attacks on foreign nationals, while \u200cAbuja was compiling compensation claims for losses suffered by Nigerians as both countries pledged to tone down rhetoric over the violence. The commitments followed\u00a0talks in Abuja between Nigeria’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Sola Enikanolaiye, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":21290,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":9,"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":[2362,2377,30],"tags":[175,122,2058],"class_list":["post-21621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-migration","category-southern-africa","tag-nigeria","tag-south-africa","tag-xenophobic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21621","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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21622,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21621\/revisions\/21622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}