Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) and Rwandan President Paul Kagame during a press briefing in Kigali Kigali on July 23, 2018. Representatives of both the Rwandan and Chinese governments have denied claims that 18 Chinese nationals were deported from Rwanda. Photo AFP / Simon Maina

Posts claiming that Rwandan President Paul Kagame ordered the deportation of 18 Chinese nationals for mistreating local workers have resurfaced online. AFP Fact Check debunked the same claim in 2020 and found no evidence backing up the allegations. To this day,  there is still no public record of such an order and representatives of both the Rwandan and Chinese governments have confirmed the incident never happened.

"You can't eat from Africa and you disrespect us...Africa is a people Continent that allows everybody to stay peacefully but won't accept any form of slavery again',” reads a Facebook post published on April 1, 2021, claiming to quote Kagame.

The post has since been shared more than 500 times.

The claim was also shared in Facebook posts here and here.

The same claim circulated last year on a Facebook page called "CNN Zambia". AFP Fact Check found it to be an imposter account pretending to belong to US news channel CNN.

There are no news reports or any other traces of the alleged deportation of Chinese nationals from Rwanda as per orders issued by Kagame.

His spokeswoman Yolande Makolo dismissed the claims as “fake news”.

"We would like to inform you that no such thing happened. It is fake news,” she told AFP Fact Check in an email on April 8, 2021.

The Chinese embassy in Kigali also said it was not aware of any deportation of its nationals.

“The Chinese embassy in Rwanda hasn’t heard about any of the deportation mentioned in the link. This piece of news is again fabricated, and full of misinformation. China and Rwanda are committed to deepen their bilateral cooperation, and bring more benefits to the Chinese and Rwandan people,” it said in an email sent to AFP Fact Check on April 8, 2021.

Reports of Chinese nationals mistreating local workers in Africa are not new. In February 2020, Kenya’s interior minister ordered the deportation of four Chinese nationals who were accused of assaulting a Kenyan restaurant worker. The scene, which was captured on video, caused outrage on social media. - Mary Kulundu, AFP Kenya/Fact Check

Burundi President Evariste Ndayishimiye. Photo AFP

The United Nations special envoy's office to Burundi will close on May 31, five months after the isolated regime requested it shuttered, the secretary-general announced Thursday.

A highly political issue, the UN's presence has been a source of tension for years between the organisation and Burundian authorities, which have contested the need for UN Security Council observation mission.

The office was established after the central African nation was plunged into political crisis in 2015, when then-president Pierre Nkurunziza ran for a disputed third term, sparking violence that claimed at least 1,200 lives.

General Evariste Ndayishimiye was elected in May 2020 to succeed Nkurunziza, who died in June. UN investigators said in September that rights abuses have continued under Ndayishimiye.

Burundi notified the UN in November last year that its office would be closed by December 31, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday in his letter to the Security Council. But the two sides agreed that the UN needed more time and settled on May 31.

In a unanimously adopted declaration, the Security Council called on Burundi late last year to "cooperate" with the UN in promoting national reconciliation and the rule of law.

"There is important work ahead to advance national reconciliation, promotion of the rule of law and of an independent and effective judiciary," said the declaration.

After the UN envoy's office closes, the United Nations is expected to continue monitoring Burundi via the special envoy to the Great Lakes region, China's Huang Xia. - AFP/The EastAfrican