By Uche Oko

The Chargé d’Affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Nigeria, Mr Zhang Yi, has said that China-Africa cooperation has entered a new chapter with new initiatives being rolled out for Africa.

In a message following the June 11, 2025, the Ministerial Meeting of Coordinators on the Implementation of the Outcomes of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation was held in Changsha, Hunan Province of the China, Zhang reiterated that China will always be the most trustworthy friend and partner of Nigeria and Africa.

He noted that the June 11 Ministerial Meeting of Coordinators on the Implementation of the Outcomes of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation had more than 100 ministerial-level officials from African countries, representatives from the African Union Commission, and ambassadors from African countries to China who attended the meeting.

Zhang wrote that the meeting, which was meant for the implementation of the outcomes of the FOCAC meeting in the Beijing Summit held last year, focused on strengthening China-Africa coordination to implement the Six Proposals for Joint Modernisation and the ‘Ten Partnership Actions’ proposed by President Xi Jinping. The meeting issued the China-Africa Changsha Declaration on Upholding Solidarity and Cooperation of the Global South, sending a resounding voice of the Global South countries to enhance solidarity and collaboration, uphold international fairness and justice, and safeguard their collective interests.

In the congratulatory letter, President Xi Jinping articulated the significance of China-Africa solidarity and cooperation, and announced a series of important measures by China to further expand open cooperation with Africa as follows.

“First, China stands ready to expand the zero-tariff treatment for 100% tariff lines to all 53 African countries with diplomatic relations, through the entry into agreements on economic partnership for shared development.

“Second, building upon the zero-tariff treatment for 100% tariff lines, China will facilitate greater access to exports from Africa’s Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to China.

“Third, China is ready to work with the African side to further implement the ‘Ten Partnership Actions’, strengthen cooperation in key areas such as green industries, e-commerce and payment, science and technology, and artificial intelligence, deepen cooperation in such fields as security, finance, and the rule of law, and jointly promote high-quality development of China-Africa cooperation.

“These new measures address the most urgent needs and pressing concerns of our African friends, epitomizing the great spirit of China-Africa friendship and cooperation, demonstrating China’s principle of sincerity, real results, amity and good faith toward Africa, as well as its commitment to the greater good and shared interests. These measures will undoubtedly accelerate the delivery of more and better benefits from last year’s Summit outcomes to Chinese and African peoples, significantly boost Africa’s strategic autonomy and development, and open a new chapter of the high-quality development of China-Africa cooperation.

“The world today is far from peace, as it faces a backlash of anti-globalization, unilateralism, protectionism, and hegemony, which brought serious challenges to the economic and social development of developing countries, including those in Africa. Only when China and Africa join hands to advance modernization, can we foster unity and cooperation among the global South and open up brighter prospects for the cause of world peace and development. As Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi pointed out in his speech, when China and Africa stand shoulder to shoulder, the development and revitalization of the Global South gains greater promise, and international fairness and justice finds stronger safeguards. The more complex and turbulent the international landscape becomes, the more imperative it is for China and Africa to strengthen unity and self-reliance, stand firmly on the right side of history, actively steer the course of the times, and address the uncertainty in the world with the stability and resilience of China-Africa relations.

“Having weathered storms and challenges, China-Africa friendship grows ever stronger with time. Against the backdrop where certain countries have instigated global trade wars, erected widespread ‘small-yard, high-fence’ barriers, and cut off aid and supplies to Africa, China remains steadfast in advancing high-level opening-up. We will continue to promote high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative, deepen China-Africa cooperation through openness, offer new opportunities to the world with the achievements of Chinese modernization, and inject new impetus into African and other Global South partners through China’s vast market.

“H.E. Yusuf Tuggar, Foreign Minister of Nigeria, and H.E. Joseph Tegbe, Director-General of the Nigeria-China Strategic Partnership, led the Nigerian delegation to attend the Ministerial Meeting of Coordinators for the Implementation of the Outcomes of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and the China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo. Nigeria is also the Guest of Honor at this year’s China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo. The Nigerian delegation received a high-level reception from the Chinese side in Changsha. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Mao Weiming, Governor of Hunan Province respectively met with the Nigerian delegation and reached important consensus with the Nigerian side on deepening China-Nigeria cooperation. The Nigerian side also discussed cooperation with several Chinese enterprises. I believe that in the future, more Chinese enterprises will invest and start businesses in Nigeria, and work together with Nigerian friends to contribute to the economic and social development of Nigeria and realize ‘the Renewed Hope’ agenda.

“China will always be the most trustworthy friend and partner of Nigeria and Africa. China stands ready to continue working hand in hand with Nigerian and other African friends to jointly advance the implementation of the ‘Ten Partnership Actions’ for China-Africa cooperation in pursuing modernization and the new measures adopted at the Coordinators’ Meeting. We will remain committed to the principles of open cooperation and mutual benefit, jointly oppose unilateralism and protectionism, continuously elevate China-Nigeria and China-Africa partnerships to new heights.”

• Watch a video of how the plane took off and crashed

From a young man who won a visa lottery, to families returning from a wedding and Eid; to a student eating lunch and a software professional, driven by a single dream: to one day build a better, brighter future abroad for his wife and their three little children, who waited patiently back in India… Many have been charred beyond recognition.

For the Patel family, April was a month of answered prayers.

The news arrived in a simple email: their son, Sahil Patel, had won a visa lottery. He was one of 3,000 Indians chosen by a random ballot for a coveted two-year United Kingdom work visa, under the British government’s India Young Professionals Scheme.

For the 25-year-old from a middle-class family, it was a pathway from a modest home in Sarod village, 150km (93 miles) from Ahmedabad, the biggest city in the western Indian state of Gujarat, to a new life in London. For his family, the visa was the culmination of every prayer, a chance for the social mobility they had worked their whole lives for.

But less than two months later, that excitement has turned to grief: Sahil was one of the 241 people on Air India 171 who died when the plane crashed into a medical college’s hostel just outside Ahmedabad airport on Thursday, June 12, seconds after taking off.

Only one passenger survived India’s deadliest aviation disaster in more than three decades. Dozens of people on the ground were killed, including several students at BJ Medical College, when the plane erupted into a ball of fire after crashing into their mess. Several others were injured, many of them still in critical care.

Those killed on board include young students on their way to London on scholarships, a family returning home from a wedding in Gujarat, another that was visiting India for Eid, and those like Sahil whose families believed they had won the luck of a lifetime.

‘Why my child?’

In the mess hall at Gujarat’s oldest medical school, Rakesh Deora was finishing his lunch along with more than 70 other medical students. From a small town in Bhavnagar in southeastern Gujarat, Deora was in the second year of his undergraduate studies – but, friends and family recalled, did not like wearing his white coat.

When the plane struck the building, he was killed by the falling debris. In the chaos that followed, many of the bodies – from the plane and on the ground – were charred beyond recognition. Deora’s face was still recognisable when his family saw his body.

At the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, five hours after the crash, another family rushed in. Irfan, 22, was an Air India cabin crew member, his uniform a symbol of pride for his family. They rushed to the morgue, unaware of what they were about to face. When an official showed Irfan’s father his son’s body – his face still recognisable – the man’s composure shattered.

He collapsed against a wall, his voice a raw lament to God. “I have been religious my whole life,” he cried, his words echoing in the sterile hallway. “I gave to charity, I taught my son character … Why this punishment upon him? Why my child?”

Beside him, Irfan’s mother refused to believe that her son was dead. “No!” she screamed at anyone who came near. “He promised he would see me when he got back. You’re lying. It’s not him.”

For another family, recognition came not from a face, but from a small, gold pendant. It was a gift from a husband to his wife, Syed Nafisa Bano, and it was the only way to identify her. Nafisa was one of four members of the Syed family on board, including her husband Syed Inayat Ali, and their two young children, Taskin Ali and Waqee Ali. They had been buzzing with excitement, talking about their return to London after spending a wonderful two months in India celebrating Eid al-Adha with their relatives. On Thursday, their family in Gujarat huddled together in the hospital corridor in mourning, the laughter they had shared consigned to memories.

‘God saved us, but he took so many others’

Just 500 metres from the main crash site, rickshaw driver Rajesh Patel was waiting for his next customer. The 50-year-old was the sole earner for his family. He wasn’t struck by debris, but by the explosion’s brutal heat, which engulfed him in flames. He now lies in a critical care unit, fighting for his life. His wife sits outside the room, her hands clasped in prayer.

In the narrow lanes of the Meghaninagar neighbourhood near the crash site, Tara Ben had just finished her morning chores and was lying down for a rest.

The sudden, deafening roar that shook her home’s tin roof sounded like a gas cylinder explosion, a familiar danger in the densely packed neighbourhood. But the screams from outside that followed told her this was different. “Arey, aa to aeroplane chhe! Plan tooti gayo! [Oh, it’s an aeroplane! It’s a plane crash!]” a man shrieked in Gujarati; his voice laced with a terror she had never heard before. Tara Ben ran out into the chaos. The air was thick with smoke and a smell she couldn’t place – acrid and metallic.

As she joined the crowd rushing to view the crash site, a cold dread washed over her – a mix of gratitude and guilt. It wasn’t just for the victims, but for her own community. She looked back at the maze of makeshift homes in her neighbourhood, where hundreds of families lived stacked one upon another. “If it had fallen here,” she later said, her voice barely a whisper, “there would be no one left to count the bodies. God saved us, but he took so many others.”

Veteran rescue worker Tofiq Mansuri has seen tragedy many times before, but nothing had prepared him for this, he said. For four hours, from mid-afternoon until the sun began to set, he and his team worked in the shadow of the smouldering wreckage to recover the dead with dignity. “The morale was high at first,” Mansuri recalled, his gaze distant, his face etched with exhaustion. “You go into a mode. You are there to do a job. You focus on the task.”

He described lifting body bag after body bag into the ambulances. But then, they found her. A small child, no more than two or three years old, her tiny body charred by the inferno. In that moment, the professional wall Mansuri had built to allow himself to deal with the dead, crumbled.

“We are trained for this, but how can you train for that?” he asked, his voice breaking for the first time. “To see a little girl … a baby … it just broke us. The spirits were gone. We were just men, carrying a child who would never go home.”

Mansuri knows the sight will stay with him. “I won’t be able to sleep for many nights,” he said, shaking his head.

‘Air India killed him’

By 7pm, five hours after the crash, ambulances were arriving at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital in a grim procession, not with sirens blaring, but in a near-silent parade of the dead.

Inside the hospital, a wave of anguish rippled through the crowd each time the doors of the morgue swung open. In one corner, a woman’s voice rose above the din, a sharp, piercing cry of accusation. “Air India killed him!” she screamed. “Air India killed my only son!” Then she collapsed into a heap on the cold floor. No one rushed to help; they simply watched, everyone struggling with their own grief.

Dozens of families waited – for a name to be called, for a familiar face on a list, for a piece of information that might anchor them amid a disorienting nightmare. They huddled in small, broken circles, strangers united by a singular, unbearable fate. Some were called into small, sterile rooms to give DNA samples to help identify their dead relatives.

Then an official’s announcement cut through the air: identified remains would only be released after 72 hours, after post-mortem procedures.

As the night deepened, some relatives, exhausted and emotionally spent, began their journey home, leaving one or two family members behind to keep vigil. But many refused to leave. They sat on the floor, their backs against the wall, their eyes vacant.

While some families still cling to the fragile hope of survival, such as in the case of Rajesh Patel, the rickshaw driver, others are grappling with the grief differently.

Away from the hospital’s frantic chaos, Sahil Patel’s father Salim Ibrahim was away in his village, calm and composed. Over the telephone, his voice did not break but remained chillingly calm, his grief masked by a single practical question.

“Will they give him back to us in a closed box?” he asked. “I just … I cannot bear for anyone to see him like that. I want him to be brought home with dignity.”

The visa that promised a new world to Sahil is now a worthless piece of paper. The plane was a Dreamliner, an aircraft named for the very thing it was meant to carry. The dream of London has dissolved into a nightmare in a morgue. And in the end, all a father can ask for his son is the mercy of a closed lid.

Source: Al Jazeera

Watch a video of how the plane took off and crashed