Angola denies entry to senior African figures

Angola is under fire after it denied entry to several senior African political figures who were to attend a conference hosted by the country's main opposition party, reports BBC News. Unita said it had invited the politicians, including Tanzanian opposition leader Tundu Lissu, Mozambique's Venancio Mondlane and Botswana's former President Ian Khama, to a summit on democracy. ‘The action of the Angolan Government to prevent us from entering Angola is inexplicable and unacceptable,’ Lissu said on X. According to a source from the Migration and Aliens Service, ‘the expulsion was due to irregularities in the visa procedure, which prevented Mondlane and 13 other members of his entourage from entering Angolan territory’. At least 20 leaders and representatives from various political parties across Africa were denied entry, said Lissu. ‘The government of this country is ruling a dictatorship while pretending that Angola is a democratic country,’ he said. Kenyan senator Edwin Sifuna, from the opposition Orange Democratic Movement, said on X he was among those denied entry into Angola. Delegates from Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Sudan who had visas or were eligible for visa on arrival were deported, the Platform for African Democrats (Pad), a group of opposition parties across Africa, said. Khama, Colombia's former President Andres Pastrana, Zanzibar's first Vice-President Othman Masoud Othman and 24 others were detained at the airport for nine hours with no explanation, according to Pad. Zanzibar's main opposition party, ACT Wazalendo, urged the Tanzanian Government to immediately summon the Angolan ambassador to provide a formal explanation of why the party's Vice-President was denied entry to the country.

Full BBC News report