Meet the Indian people of Africa

Africa's cultural diversity is comes with even the Indians who are in two groups in Africa: 1. Non resident Indians; who have emigrated from either India or other countries to come and work in Africa. 2. Persons of Indian descent; who are descendants of the early Indians in Africa. Africa has over 3 million Indians where South Africa has the largest number of Indians of all African countries with over 1.3 million Indians. The earliest or first Indians in SouthAfrica arrived at Durban in Kwazulu Natal in 1860 to work as indentured labourers on sugarcane plantations of the colony masters of South Africa. They were later joined by the popular civil rights activist and lawyer Mahatma Gandhi in 1893 who played a major role towards the rights of Indians in SouthAfrica. There were also non indentured workers who lived most in Pretoria. Today Indians in SouthAfrica are found mainly in Durban city. Indians are also found in other Southern African countries such as Botswana, Lesotho,Zambia, Zimbabwe . In East Africa Indians also have very interesting history ; Indians are believed to have earlier used EastAfrican coast way back in days of acient babylon as merchant sailors who used port mombasa alot to form trading posts. Another wave of Indians in EASTAFRICA was the construction of the EastAfrican railway from Kenya to Uganda in 1890s which saw large number of Sikh Indians being brought to work as indentured labourers. After the completion of the railway line, other merchant Indians joined the remaining Sikhs. These were the Muslim indians, Indians from gujarat and others. In 1972 the president of Uganda by then Idi amin dada expelled them from the country but later they came back in 1981 during Obote's return and in 1986 when President Museveni took over power. Indians are also found in Mauritius where they account for 60%of the Population. They are also found in Mozambique and reunion island. Other Indians are found in West Africa most especially in Nigeria and Ghana.