Egypt’s foreign minister Tuesday said they would investigate allegations that an Egyptian official at UN Assembly on environment last week in Nairobi referred to Sub-Saharan Africans as “dogs and slaves.”
Kenyan diplomat and chairwoman of the Yvonne Africa Diplomatic Corps technical committee Khamati has demanded in a memo that Egypt no longer represents Africa at international gatherings after she alleged that Egypt’s Minister of Environment and also President of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) referred to Africans from sub-Saharan Africa as “dogs and slaves.”
According to the Kenyan diplomat the comments were made following failure to adopt a resolution on Gaza due to lack of quorum as most delegates had already left the Assembly.
“During our consultations with Egypt, the head of the Egyptian delegation and current President of AMCEN dismissed our concerns by informing that they would speak in their sovereign capacity and to that extent, referred to sub-Saharan Africans as dogs and slaves, in Arabic,” Khamati explained in the memo relayed by local media.
Khamati demanded that Egypt apologizes for the comments and also called for the resignation of the President of AMCEN.
Egypt’s foreign minister Sameh Shoukry denied that such comments were ever made and rejected Khamati’s bash on Egypt.
Egypt’s minister of environment Khaled Fahmy denied any wrongdoing saying that he did not attend the conference. Egyptian ambassador to Kenya and two consultants of his Ministry were representing Egypt in the conference, Fahmy claimed.
The incident is likely to sour Egypt’s ties with sub-Saharan Africa and questions related to the incident will be posed to Egyptian leader al-Sisi who is expected to attend the African Union annual summit scheduled to take place in Kigali, Rwanda, in July.