Nigerian and Kenyan students are some of the Africans that have reportedly been attacked by mobs this week in northern India, some left with devastating injuries.
Nine Nigerians were attacked, including two brothers who were badly injured after a mob attacked them with blunt objects.
Videos of the scathing attacks have gone viral online, and the brothers hospitalized after the incident.
Additionally, a Kenyan woman in her twenties was admitted to hospital Wednesday after she was attacked while getting out of a cab.
Indian police say the attacked were prompted by the death of a teenager in an alleged drug overdose.
The late teenager’s family filed a police report against five local Nigerian men, who have since been detained on suspicion of drug peddling, abduction and murder.
A postmortem, however, did not confirm the theory of a drug overdose and the men were later released.
This is not the first time African students have been attacked in India over the past year. In February 2016, two policemen were suspended and several arrests were made after a mob attacked a Tanzanian student in Bangalore. Last May, in a high profile incident, a student from the Democratic Republic of Congo was beaten to death by Indian men in Delhi following an argument. In another incident in Hyderabad, also last May, an Indian man was arrested following an attack on a Nigerian student.
Following the attacks, Sushma Swaraj, India’s external affairs minister, has promised a “fair and impartial investigation.”
