Religious Groups Urged to Help Stop Xenophobia in Africa

Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool has challenged all religious and faith groups to play important roles in Africa's changing attitude towards each other.

During his attendance at the Africa Day Mass in the Roman Catholic St. Mary's Cathedral, he expressed that it was just xenophobia that was the main obstacle in developing Africa, he reported to BuaNews.

Demography in Africa is extremely diverse, with inhabitants consisting of many cultural, social and religious backgrounds. But as Africa is struggling with several long time problems, unity in order to solve them is important and necessary.

"We need to encourage the flow of people and information, cultural exchange and opportunities between our province-country and the entire African continent."

"This cannot be achieved if we don't embrace each other as brothers and sisters, and instead continue to treat one another in ways that foment racial and cultural divisions," Rasool said.

Among the problems that are tearing Africa apart is the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS that is causing even more deaths than starvation, which is the other major difficulty in the African continent.

The issue is considered to be such a serious matter by the United Nations that a special meeting on HIV/AIDS in Johannesburg, South Africa will be held this week.

The meeting will be held during the visit of Kofi Annan's - of the United Nations - special envoy for Southern Africa. James T. Morris, who is Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Humanitarian Envoy for southern Africa and also the Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), will be joined by Ann Veneman of the UN's Children's Fund (UNICEF) and Peter Piot of Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

Morris' visit to Africa aims to bring focus to the problems of the region - such as drought and HIV/AIDS.

He began the visit yesterday in Zambia, where food insecurity reached a critical point this year. Zambia is facing increasing levels of HIV/AIDS among adults (17%) and children as well, especially orphans (10% of the population).

Before commencing the visit, Morris stressed that this "triple threat" - of food insecurity, HIV/AIDS and weakened Government capacity cannot fail this time.