WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE PICTURES OF SIDI PEOPLE BELOW, YOU WOULD THINK THEY ARE SOMEWHERE IN AFRICA, BUT NO, THIS IS INDIA! How did these 850 000 African descendent Bantu end up in Asia?

Sidi is not a country but the BaSidi, VaSidi or The Sidi are African diaspora people in Asia, mainly in Makran and Karachi in Pakistan and Karnataka, Gujarat and Hyderabad in India. They are Bantu. In historical texts, they are also referred to as Zanj, which means country of the blacks. Some of them are at times called Habesha, meaning Abyssinians or Ethiopians and Eritreans with Semitic languages. Other names used include Sheedi, Siddi, Siddhi and Habshi. Their population numbers about 850 000. They ended up in Asia around the year 628 mainly because of forced movement due to slavery, forced labour and forced military work. Others came later as slaves of the Portuguese from Southern Africa about 400 years ago. They came from East and Southern Africa, mainly areas around present-day Ethiopia and Mozambique.

There are government programs to improve the social and economic situation of BaSidi, but most are poor living without adequate education, housing, food and income. Brought into India by Arab and later European slaverers, BaSidi are a lost African people, not well known on the African continent and like most of the African diaspora, they are exposed to poor social and economic opportunities.

This is just one of several diaspora communities of African descent hidden from the continent. What could African social work’s contribution to the African diaspora? Or should we limit ourselves to Africans in Africa?

You can read the full story here https://africasocialwork.net/sidi/