African Union President Blasts U.S. for Accepting Slaves But Banning Refugees

African Union Commission Chairperson Nkosazana Clarice Dlamini Zuma speaks during a joint press alongside the African Union and Mauritania President, the European Union Council president, and EU Commission President on the second day of 4th EU-Africa summit on April 3, 2014, at the EU Headquarters in Brussels. Some 80 nations are gathering in Brussels for an EU-Africa summit dominated by conflict, trade and illegal migration. (Photo credit: JOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images)

Leaders representing the 53 members of the African Union met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Monday for a two-day summit. The meeting main purpose is to vote on the union’s new leadership, but it started with a fiery critique of President Donald Trump’s ban of refugees and visa holders that covers people from three of the coalition’s member states.

AU President Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma blasted the U.S. in remarks at the meeting. “The very country to which many of our people were taken as slaves during the transatlantic slave trade has now decided to ban refugees from some of our countries,” she said, according to the Independent.

The ban that Trump signed on Friday, which sowed confusion and outrage over the weekend, restricts people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S., including African Union members Libya, Somalia, and Sudan.

Dlamini-Zuma called the ban “one of the greatest challenges to our unity and solidarity.”

Click here to read more.

SOURCE: Fortune, Claire Zillman