Ruptly
"Ghana's Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa personally greeted a first group of 297 Ghanaian nationals evacuated from South Africa amid growing anti-immigrant tensions and fears of xenophobic violence at Accra International Airport on Wednesday. "We send a clear message. Ghanaians have a caring government. Ghanaians are valued, Ghanaians are loved, Ghanaians are cherished, and if you mess around with Ghanaians anywhere in the world, thinking that they are orphaned or nobody cares about them, you are mistaken, and you are making a mess of yourselves," Ablakwa stated. Footage shows hundreds of people attending a welcoming ceremony at the airport after leaving a chartered flight, which departed Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport. The flight is the beginning of a voluntary repatriation operation facilitated by the Ghanaian government triggered by a surge of anti-foreigner demonstrations across South Africa. These protesters accused illegal immigrants of contributing to unemployment, crime, and housing shortages. One of the evacuees, Victor Atsu Togoh, who used to work as an Uber driver, claimed they were forced to leave because of a 'xenophobic attack' in South Africa. "I was doing Uber; they hijacked me, and they shot me, and then they shot me many times, but then, by the grace of God, I was able to have a sustainable life, and then, as I'm speaking to you, I still have a bullet in my spine, for which I need to do some sort of operation," the man said. "So, those are some of the experiences that I went through." Former hairdresser Esther Ofosu echoed the sentiments of 'chasing the foreigners away', sharing that she even had to travel without any of her belongings. "I didn't bring back my everything because the way they are doing it, you can't even sell it or hand it over to someone to come, so I left everything behind. And then I came," the woman said. The situation escalated after a viral video surfaced showing the assault and harassment of a Ghanaian man, prompting Ghana's Ministry of Foreign Affairs to summon the South African ambassador in protest. While South African authorities have officially condemned the violence, the fear of widespread unrest led more than 800 Ghanaians to register for emergency evacuation with the Ghana High Commission in Pretoria. A second repatriation flight is already scheduled to depart South Africa soon to accommodate the remaining evacuees."
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