African envoys: India attacks on Nigerians 'racial'

Envoys from African nations in the Indian capital, Delhi,
 have condemned the handling of recent attacks on Nigerian students in the city.

In a statement, the African Heads of Mission said the 
attacks were "xenophobic and racial".

Indian authorities had failed to "sufficiently condemn" the attacks or take "visible deterring measures", the envoys
 added.

The students were attacked last month in Greater Noida, 
close to Delhi.

Five Nigerian students were attacked by crowds, while
 another was beaten by a mob inside a shopping mall.

The violence was prompted by the death of a local teenager due to a drug overdose. His parents blame Nigerian students for giving him the drugs.

Police say five people have been arrested over the violence and India's Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj has promised an
"impartial" inquiry.

But the African Heads of Mission said that the response
 was inadequate, and called for an investigation by the UN Human Rights Council.

They also called for "strong condemnation from the 
highest political level (both nationally and locally) of the government of India, as well as expediting legal actions against the perpetrators".

The attack on one student inside the shopping mall was recorded on mobile phone cameras by other shoppers
 and widely circulated on social media.

The victim told Indian reporters he had been beaten with 
rods, bricks and knives. He said that no one had helped or even called the police.

Many Indians have reacted with shame online. But there
 have been a number of incidents in recent years in which people from African nations living in India have faced apparent discrimination or violence.

In May 2016 a Congolese man was beaten to death in 
Delhi after an argument over an auto-rickshaw. Three months before that, a Tanzanian student was assaulted and partially stripped by a mob in the southern city of Bangalore.


A Nigerian man living in Goa was stabbed to death in 2013.