{"id":121937,"date":"2026-05-29T08:18:54","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T08:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=121937"},"modified":"2026-05-29T08:18:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T08:18:54","slug":"ghana-catholic-bishops-caution-against-emotional-reactions-over-south-africa-xenophobia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=121937","title":{"rendered":"Ghana Catholic Bishops caution against emotional reactions over South Africa xenophobia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The President of the Ghana Catholic Bishops\u2019 Conference, Most Rev. Matthew Kwasi Gyamfi, has called for calm amid rising xenophobic tensions in South Africa and retaliatory calls by some Ghanaians to shut down South African businesses operating in Ghana.<\/p>\n

According to him, retaliatory actions could escalate tensions across the continent and undermine African unity and peaceful coexistence.<\/p>\n

Most Rev. Gyamfi urged Ghanaians and Africans generally not to respond emotionally by targeting South Africans or their businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that Ghanaians who have been repatriated, and indeed all Africans, should see this as a misunderstanding by some people in South Africa and should not react by repatriating South Africans back,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you begin that, it will have a snowball effect all over Africa. We just want everybody to keep calm. Initially, people may want to act emotionally to settle scores, but that is not the proper way to handle these issues,\u201d he added in a Citi M interview.<\/p>\n

The Catholic Bishop stressed the need for peaceful coexistence among African countries, noting that citizens across the continent continue to live and conduct business in one another\u2019s countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cGhanaians will continue to live in South Africa, and South Africans will also continue to live in Ghana. Ghanaians have businesses there, and South Africans also have businesses here. Let us live in unity and love,\u201d he appealed.<\/p>\n

Most Rev. Gyamfi acknowledged that misunderstandings and isolated incidents may occur, but cautioned against allowing such situations to define relationships among African nations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will always be some aberrations. You should not build on the deviations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He further described it as unfortunate that Africans continue to divide themselves along colonial boundaries created during European colonisation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very sad that Africans continue to build on the divisions created by Europeans instead of breaking away from them. We keep emphasising artificial boundaries and differences,\u201d he lamented.<\/p>\n

Drawing historical parallels, Most Rev. Gyamfi referenced past tensions between Ghana and Nigeria, during which both countries expelled each other\u2019s citizens at different periods, saying such actions only led to hardship and regret.<\/p>\n

\u201cGhana once made the mistake of asking Nigerians to go back home, and later Nigerians also repatriated Ghanaians. I do not think the two countries will ever repeat those mistakes again because they have learned their lesson,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The President of the Ghana Catholic Bishops\u2019 Conference, Most Rev. Matthew Kwasi Gyamfi, has called for calm amid rising xenophobic tensions in South Africa and retaliatory calls by some Ghanaians to shut down South African businesses operating in Ghana. According to him, retaliatory actions could escalate tensions across the continent and undermine African unity and [\u2026]<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18663,1969,1883,117,10,9,1898,18664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ghana-catholic-bishops","category-hp-news-3","category-national","category-news","category-politics","category-popular","category-south-africa","category-xenophobia"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=121937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121937\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=121937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=121937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=121937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}