The Chinese community in South Africa has pleaded for an end to the discrimination against them in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak in China.
Called Covid-19, the virus is said to have originated in a fish market in the city of Wuhan in China’s Hubei province.
Since the outbreak was first reported at the end of December 2019 more than 1700 people have died while more than 70 00 cases have been confirmed worldwide.
The chairperson of the Chinese Association in South Africa, Erwin Pon, says people avoid him and his family in shops even though they haven’t travelled to China recently.
“A physical one we’ve seen them on school kids and we’ve had incidents in our community where one of the kids came back and said mommy other kids don’t want to play with me anymore because they say I am Chinese and have the virus.”
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