It is 6pm on Saturday, and 22-year-old Merviel Bakusa is doing his best to make his home look perfect for a party. There aren’t too many touches of colour in his rented two-room flat in Khirki Extension in south Delhi, and the cream walls of the hall look dull. The red sofa helps to brighten the mood. Happy with his efforts, he gives himself an imaginary pat and says, “Ye achha hai (This is good)."

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Valentine Jr from Nigeria runs a salon at Khirki extension and takes pride in the fact that an Indian cop praised his hair-cutting.

Bakusa is one of the many Africans staying in Khirki Extension, the area in which Delhi’s law minister Somnath Bharti reportedly forced a “raid" on the house of four African women in the early hours of 16 January, on the premise that a drug and prostitution racket was being run there. The incident has left the Africans staying there terrified but it didn’t come as a shock—it isn’t the first time they are facing such incidents, and they’ve learnt to live with it.

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19-year-old Marc Pandemoya says he loves the malls, the Delhi metro and ‘Chole Bhature’.

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Nadia Ngoza, a Congolese national feels that the issue that happened on 16 January has painted every African in the same light.

Though the numbers were not immediately available, many African nationals come to India every year for a variety of reasons—education, healthcare, business, even to escape unrest back home. Valentine Jr, who uses only one name, came to India in November with his wife and three-year-old child, believing India to be more “peaceful and stable" than his country, Nigeria. In January, he opened a hair salon in Khirki Extension, but soon realized surviving in Delhi wasn’t going to be easy. “Dealing with the cops is a difficult thing as they keep asking you for the papers. Only once a cop came for a hair-cut and was very impressed with my services," he smiles. Valentine says the 16 January incident has hit business badly, with the number of customers dropping sharply.

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Merviel Bakusa says he has learnt Hindi to interact better with his Indian friends.

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