African ambassadors met US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who told them she regretted the political drama around what was said a week ago at a White House meeting on immigration, according to diplomats at the UN meeting.
Ambassador Anatolio Ndong Mba of Equatorial Guinea, who chairs the Africa Group, said that the US ambassador did not offer an apology during the closed-door meeting, but she did express regret.
Haley told the meeting that “she was not there at the White House, she is not sure what was said, but she regretted all this situation that has been created”, the ambassador said.
“We appreciate the fact that she came and she talked about all the co-operation between the United States with Africa,” said Ndong Mba, who described the meeting as “very friendly”.
The diplomats said that South African UN ambassador Jerry Matjila, who spoke on behalf of the group, told Haley that “it could be useful” for Trump to address African leaders directly when they meet in Addis Ababa at the African Union.
That meeting is due to take place on January 28-29, according to the African Union website.
Haley told the ambassadors that she did not know what had been said in last week’s White House meeting and promised to convey the African ambassadors’ message to Trump when she meets him in Washington this week, according to the diplomats.
Trump reportedly demanded to know why the United States should accept immigrants from “s******e countries” after lawmakers raised the issue of protections for immigrants from African nations, Haiti and El Salvador.
However the US president later tweeted that “this was not the language used”.
The US mission to the United Nations declined to comment on the UN meeting beyond a tweet it posted, which read: “Thank you to the Africa Group for meeting today. We discussed our long relationship and history of combating HIV, fighting terrorism, and committing to peace throughout the region.”
African UN ambassadors issued a statement last Friday that said they were “extremely appalled at, and strongly condemned the outrageous, racist, xenophobic remarks attributed to the president of the United States”.
They demanded Trump retract his remarks and apologise.
The United Nations slammed the reported remarks as “shocking and shameful” as well as “racist.”
“You cannot dismiss entire countries and continents as ‘s*******s’ whose entire populations, who are not white, are therefore not welcome,” Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN human rights office, told reporters in Geneva.
According to diplomats at the UN meeting on Thursday, Haley also spoke about the billions of dollars that the United States had invested in the fight against HIV/Aids and terrorism in Africa and in humanitarian aid for South Sudan.
Haley travelled to Ethiopia, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in late October last year.
