Last Friday, May 27, during the second session of the United Nation Environment Assembly in Nairobi, the Head of the Egyptian Delegation and current President of African Ministerial Conference on the Environment was accused of referring to Africans from Sub-Saharan Africa as “dogs and slaves”.
As expected there are two scenarios to the incident, the first one is Yvonne Khamati’s (the Chair of the Africa Diplomatic Corps technical committee) and the second one is our Ministry Of Foreign Affairs’. Let’s display both of them and leave the judgment to you.
1st scenario: Yvonne Khamati wrote to the Dean of the Africa Diplomatic Corps Amb that the head of the Egyptian delegation while speaking to his delegation, called Africans from the Sub-Sahara part of the continent as “dogs and slaves” in Arabic, she explained that the incident followed a misunderstanding over a resolution concerning Gaza that was not adopted, during the Assembly.
As a result, she is demanding that Egypt should be banned from representing the continent in any official capacity until an official political apology for the minister’s behavior takes place and the resignation of the Minister.
2nd scenario: The Egyptian Ministry Of Foreign Affairs declared in a recent statement that there is still no proof that such an incident occurred in the first place, and even if it actually happened it is not acceptable to generalize and press charges against the Egyptian government and doubt Egypt’s ability to fulfill its responsibilities toward the African interests.
