On Thursday, Germany was compelled to issue an apology after using a leopard emoji in a crude Twitter jab at Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that angered several Africans.
The German foreign ministry made fun of Russia’s top diplomat during his trip to Africa by tweeting that he was using the trip to attempt and explain Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine rather than going to seek for leopards.
The upgraded Leopard II tanks that Germany decided to deliver to the Ukrainian army were referenced by the leopard emoji that the foreign ministry used on its official Twitter account.
However, Ebba Kalondo, the spokesperson for Moussa Faki Mahamat, the head of the African Union, tweeted: “Foreign policy is not a joke nor should it be used to score cheap geopolitical points by illustrating an entire continent with colonial tropes”.
The German Foreign Ministry apologised and said that the tweet wasn’t meant to offend, but rather “to call out the lies that Russia uses to justify its imperialist war of aggression against Ukraine.”
Mr Lavrov has visited South Africa, Eswatini [Swaziland], Angola and Eritrea this week, where he has repeated his claims that the United States and its Western allies are using Ukraine as a tool in a “hybrid war” against Russia.
