Ireland–South Africa relations as premature. The Irish embassy opened in Pretoria in 1994. From the early 1960s Ireland vehemently opposed apartheid in South Africa. South African Nelson Mandela, then a dissident, later president, was awarded the Freedom of the City of Dublin in 1988 while a political prisoner; he collected the award upon his release in 1990. Diplomatic ties between the two countries were established in 1994. In November 2003, Brian Cowen, while touring Africa as Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, promised South African President Thabo Mbeki that Ireland would highlight African problems when it ascended to the Council Presidency of the European
Zimbabweans in South Africa was that of white people in Zimbabwe who left the country soon after the Lancaster House Agreement ended the Zimbabwe Rhodesia government; the second, still ongoing, was that of ethnic Zimbabweans beginning in the 1990s. In both cases, South Africa was again their primary destination. From 1994 onwards, the South African government displayed increasing hostility to skilled immigration from the rest of Africa. However, this has not served to limit the number of immigrants; Zimbabwean migration to South Africa since 2000 has been described as the "largest concentrated flow" in the country's history. Migrants previously consisted of young people arriving