{"id":46551,"date":"2022-06-01T16:22:58","date_gmt":"2022-06-01T15:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/?p=46551"},"modified":"2022-06-07T16:13:56","modified_gmt":"2022-06-07T15:13:56","slug":"furious-and-disappointed-african-activists-excluded-from-stockholm50-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2022\/06\/01\/furious-and-disappointed-african-activists-excluded-from-stockholm50-summit\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Furious and disappointed’: African activists excluded from Stockholm+50 summit"},"content":{"rendered":"

West African climate activists have been left stranded and hundreds of dollars out of pocket after the Swedish government failed to provide them with visas to attend the Stockholm+50 environment summit.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Climate Home has spoken to three activists from two countries who were unable to travel to Stockholm because their visas were not processed in time. All three travelled long distances and spent lots of time and money applying. Two are now unable to return to their home country as their passports were sent to Nairobi for processing.<\/p>\n

Issa Sesay is the secretary general of Fridays for Future Sierra Leone. His father and brother died in 2018 mudslides linked to climate change and deforestation. Sesay was invited to speak on a panel in Stockholm where he would tell world leaders about the catastrophic aftermath of that disaster.<\/p>\n

Instead, he and his colleague Roseline Isata Mansaray have spent ten days in Nigeria’s capital city of Abuja, travelling daily between their hotel and the Swedish embassy in order to try and get a visa. They are likely to miss the conference entirely.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are really stressed and disappointed at the Swedish government,\u201d he said. \u201cWe feel discriminated [against] as Africans by the European people.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Issa Sesay campaigns against deforestation<\/p><\/div>\n

Fridays for Future Nigeria activist Esther Oluwatoyin is in a similar position. She travelled from her home in Ogun state to the Swedish consulate in Lagos. She applied for her visa on 12 May and spent $90, despite Sweden saying conference delegates would be exempted from an application fee.<\/p>\n

She was told that applications usually take 15 days but those for this event would be prioritised. Twenty days later, she has not received her visa and has now missed her flight. \u201cIt\u2019s only Africans that are being denied a visa. For that, I was really furious and disappointed,\u201d she told Climate Home.<\/p>\n

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Esther Oluwatoyin speaks to school students<\/p><\/div>\n

All three activists’ passports were sent from Nigeria to the Swedish embassy in Kenya’s capital Nairobi. When Climate Home emailed this embassy, an automatic reply said they had a “longer handling time” because May-July is their peak season.<\/p>\n

Sesay and Mansaray are unable to return home to Sierra Leone because they do not have their passports. Sesay said they had spent $600 on travel, Covid medicine and the visa application fee, which they can’t afford. The average annual salary<\/a> in Sierra Leone is $476.<\/p>\n

On Twitter, other African activists said they had given up trying to attend. A Gambian youth activist said they travelled to Senegal to apply for a visa and spent three weeks there. “Please cancel my visa application and give me my passport as I do not have the money and energy to stay in Senegal for another day,” they wrote<\/a> in an anonymised letter shared by Extinction Rebellion Gambia.<\/p>\n

Kenyan activist Nyombi Morris tweeted: “I gave up on Stockholm+50, its like UN as the organiser never bothered alerting the embassies to simplify the procedures\u2026for youth delegates”.<\/p>\n

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Me i gave up on stockholm +50, its like UN as the organiser never bothered alerting the embassies to simplify the procedures\u2026for youth delegates #ActivistsNotValued<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Nyombi Morris (@mnyomb1) May 29, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n