The African Group of Ambassadors in Beijing has written a letter of protest to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China and International Department of the Communist Party of China, strongly protesting “the ongoing forceful testing and quarantine and maltreatment of African Nationals in China and in Guangdong Province, in particular.”

The Group appreciates collaboration between African nations, historical and modern, which has also manifested in the ongoing fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is therefore worrisome, following this excellent cooperation and mutual friendship that, the African Group of Ambassadors observes with consternations the discrimination and stigmatization of Africans whereby they are made to forcefully, and in a very crude manner, to undergo epidemic investigation and Nucleic Acid Test, fourteen (14) days quarantine even if they had not travelled outside their jurisdictions, not come into contact with infected persons, not had close contact or showing any symptoms of the COVID-19,” a letter released publicly states.

Africans in China have at all times adhered to the laws of China, particularly within the period of this outbreak, the Group states.

“We have not and cannot recall Chinese authorities reporting a case where our nationals have violated the anti-pandemic laws and regulations of the China Government,” it points out.  “Therefore, the singling out of Africans for compulsory testing and quarantine, in our view, has no scientific or logical basis and amounts to racism towards Africans in China.”

The friendship between Africa and China should be mutual and not a one-way affair, it insists. “Regrettably, we have received disquieting reports of inhuman treatments meted out to Africans particularly in Guangdong Province…,” it says.

This includes the ejection of African nationals—including Togolese, Nigerians, and Benenois—from their hotels in the middle of the night “only because they are Africans”. Separately, a group of African students studying in Sun-Yat Sen University in Guangzhou were made to undergo the Nucleic Acid Test, in spite of the fact that they had no travel history within the stated period.

There has also been selective testing of African students while their non-African colleagues are left out and cases of African men married to Chinese ladies being demanded to take the COVID-19 test while there Chinese families are left out. “In some cases, the men were pulled out of their families and quarantined in hotels alone,” the Group reveals.

There have been forced evictions of Africans from their various apartments. They were thrown into the streets, even those with infant children. Passports of African nationals have been seized in violation of international practices and conventions. And there has been “persistent harassment and humiliation of African nationals by subjecting them to unwarranted medical examinations after testing negative for the COVID-19, and forced into quarantine, irrespective of their negative status”.

 Africans have been threatened with “revocation of visas, arrest, detention and deportation of African legal migrants for no cogent reason which infringes on their human rights.”

“From the foregoing, the impression is being created as though the spread of the virus is caused by Africans contrary to the fact that, in China, and indeed globally, Africans are the least exposed to COVID-19,” the Group points out. “Or, is there any other reason for which Africans are being targeted other than COVID19 that we are unaware of?”

“We would also want to bring to your attention the possible backlash in our home countries of this obvious human rights violation,” the letter states. “The Group of African Ambassadors in Beijing immediately demands the cessation of forceful testing, quarantine and other inhuman treatments meted out to Africans in Guangdong Province, in particular, and the whole of China and also demands that Africans are treated the same as Chinese and other nationals in the fight against COVID-19.”