Cairo: Egypt denied on Tuesday that one of its officials had hurled racist slurs at Africans during a global environment meeting held in Kenya earlier in the week.
Yvonne Khamati, chairperson of the Africa Diplomatic Corps Technical Committee, said the head of the Egyptian delegation at the UN Environment Assembly Conference in Nairobi referred to sub-Saharan Africa as “dogs and slaves”.
Khamati demanded that Egypt “at the highest level, unreservedly apologise to Africa”, and that the country resign as President of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN).
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said that there was no confirmed information yet that such utterances were made by the country’s representative at the meeting. The ministry said it was conducting an investigation into the claims.
“In any case, it is not acceptable to level flimsy accusations against the Egyptian state and Egypt’s people casting doubts over their African affiliation and Egypt’s ability to shoulder its responsibility in expressing African interests,” the ministry added in a statement.
For his part, Egyptian Minister of the Environment Khalid Fahmi said he had not attended the meeting and that his country was represented by its ambassador to Kenya and two environment advisers.
“No Egyptian member could make such utterances,” Fahmi said tersely in press remarks.
According to Khamati, the purported utterances were made during a disagreement over adopting a motion at the Nairobi gathering.
“Divisions evolved when the resolution on Gaza was not adopted due to a lack of quorum because most delegations had left. As a result, a few African delegations consulted with the delegation of Morocco, in their capacity as Chair of the Arab League and Egypt, with the view to dissuade them from nullifying the resolutions that had already been adopted before the issue of quorum was raised,” the Kenyan diplomat was quoted as saying in a memorandum.
“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 Africa as dogs and slaves, in Arabic.”
Sub-Saharan Africa refers to the continent’s countries to the south of the Sahara desert. The term contrasts with North Africa whose countries, including Egypt, are part of the Arab world.
