Former international soccer star Boniface Ambani has opened up about horrid experiences that forced him to abandon a deal he had signed with a high-ranking football club in South Africa.
At the time, Ambani had just become the fifth Kenyan to ink a deal with a respected team in South Africa.
In a statement he shared on Tuesday, October 26, the former soccer star revealed that he was mistreated by his teammates during training sessions.
He noted that some of the players did not want him on their team and aggressively refused to pass him the ball.
"Day one in training and I could tell I am going to have a hard time. But I soldiered on. It was really frustrating when nobody would pass the ball to me in training. Only under pressure would they do that. 30 minutes into training, the coach decided to play 11 aside just to gauge all the players.
"five minutes into the session, I found myself on the ground. I had gone for an aerial ball, only for one of the guys to come flying into me. I am down and no player comes to help. I am bleeding yet they are laughing. I was rushed to the hospital. Seven stitches on my chin," he recounted.
He noted that after hospitalisation, he felt better after a week but when he visited the training ground, he was not received well.
That was when he decided to park and leave, even before participating in his first match.
"I felt better after one week, though I hadn't recovered well. I went to training to check on them, the guy who seriously injured me wasn't even sorry. I just packed and left.
"The drama wasn't over. My check-in luggage at the airport was emptied. Be cautious with your valuables in that city. Insecurity in SA is just on another level," he added.
This is just the latest case of xenophobia that foreigners suffer in South Africa, a country whose citizens are often on high alert to guard jobs and opportunities for countrymen.
In 2015, former Citizen TV anchor Janet Mbugua revealed that she was mistreated while working in South Africa and often felt unsettled.
"Living in South Africa always left me feeling unsettled. There was always an underlying sense of fear and concern regarding my status as a 'Kwere Kwere' (their derogatory term for African immigrants) and I wasn't able to easily secure my work permit because of the same," stated Mbugua.
The xenophobia situation worsened in South Africa in September 2019, where in some cases, foreigners were being set on fire.
