Dr Mustafa Bothwell Mheta 
Reports that Ukrainian authorities are refusing African students to leave the country for safety in Poland and other bordering European countries smacks of blatant racism.
They are allowing Ukrainians to cross the borders and take refuge in other countries.
The only people being prevented are black African students and other people of colour, stranded at the Polish border.
To make matters worse, Ukrainian civilians are preventing Africans from boarding the free trains carrying Ukrainians and other nationals to leave the country and flee.
Video footage shows that Ukrainian police boarded the trains and forcibly removed all Africans saying they had to stay behind while allowing all other nationals to proceed.
This is how far down the ladder Africans are regarded.
Even the BBC, no friend of Africans, reported this.
This proves what President Putin has been saying all along: that Ukraine is being run by neo-nazis.
During the so-called Maidan protests which culminated in the removal of the democratically-elected President Victor Yanukovych, the neo-nazis openly campaigned using their symbols on the streets of Kiev with US senator John McCain joining in distributing burgers to them.
It comes as no surprise that the same Ukrainians who are crying and chanting democracy today are also very racist.
Indeed, the majority of them are descendants of the nazis who fled from Austria and Germany during the Second World War and settled in Ukraine.
Racism is in their genes.
What boggles the mind is that many Africans in the diaspora and within Africa are the first people to condemn President Putin of being a ruthless dictator and war-monger.
They ignore the fact that he is fighting against NATO expansionism which poses an existential threat to his country.
Today the Anglo-Saxons are busy putting in place sanction regimes to punish Russia and President Putin pretending as if he alone is responsible for the current crisis.
As usual, they lament the fact that democracy is in danger in Europe, when the reality is they don’t care about democracy.
If they did, they would support the cries of the Palestinians where the so-called democracy is at stake with daily killings of children, old people, and demolition of people’s houses daily.
Instead, they support zionist aggressors without any regard for the suffering of the Palestinian people.
Another argument being advanced by the Anglo-Saxons in their attempt to discredit Putin is that Russia is a superpower, so why is it fighting Ukraine, a military nonentity?
They forget, how many countries ganged up on Qaddafi’s Libya and blew it to pieces?
Was Libya a superpower?
How many countries bombed Iraq, Syria, and now Yemen?
It is a shame for Africans to blindly support the doomed adventures of western imperialists wherever they happen because blacks will never be invited to their dinner table.
When it comes to supper time, Africans will always be sidelined.
African leaders should be careful before condemning what they don’t know well.
Ukraine’s contemptuous treatment of black Africans is totally unacceptable and must be condemned by all Africans.
Do our people not have the right to flee from Russian bombs and save their lives?
This is raw racism and it is definitely evil.
Even when they are fighting and people are dying, the Europeans still deny some people access to their borders simply because of their skin colour.
How wicked can they be?
The African Union (AU) should carefully weigh the evidence before condemning Putin’s actions in Ukraine.
Instead, the AU should demand that the Ukrainian neo-nazis stop treating black Africans as sub-human.
Africans stuck in Ukraine should be allowed, like others, to evacuate to places of safety.
Dr. Mustafa Mheta is Senior researcher/Head of Africa Desk Media Review Network, Johannesburg, South Africa. He is also Dean of the School of Languages at Somali National University (SNU), Mogadishu.
