Africa Union Warns Against Becoming World Powers’ Battle Ground

The African Union has warned that the continent risks becoming a geostrategic battleground for competing big power interests.

Its commission chairman, Moussa Faki Mahamat, said Africa must resist the consequences of intensifying global rivalries that he said threatened to create a new cold war.

China, Russia, and the United States have all sent their top diplomats to Africa this year.

The Ukraine’s foreign minister is currently on a mission there.

Meanwhile, chairman’s warning was given on the sixtieth anniversary of the formation of the African Union’s predecessor, the organisation of African unity.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who is currently on a tour of Africa, on Wednesday urged certain African nations to end their “neutrality” over the war.

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However, on February, 22 AU member states abstained or did not vote on a UN General Assembly resolution that called for Russia to withdraw from Ukraine.

Two of them — Eritrea and Mali — voted against the resolution.

And in a statement to mark the pan-African body’s anniversary, Kuleba also announced a Ukrainian diplomatic push on the continent.

“We want to develop a new quality of partnership based on three mutual principles: mutual respect, mutual interests, and mutual benefits,”

He said, announcing plans to establish new embassies in Africa and hold a Ukraine-Africa summit.

Moscow itself has scheduled a Russia-Africa summit in July, following a trip to several African countries at the start of the year by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

China and the United States too have dispatched their foreign ministers to the continent in rival diplomatic offensives this year.