A Senegal-born chemist has become the first black lawmaker to be elected to Germany's Parliament.
Election authorities in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt said Monday that Karamba Diaby won a seat in the lower house for the Social Democrats, Germany's main center-left party.
The 51-year-old Diaby moved to the city of Halle in 1986, receiving a scholarship to study in East Germany at a time when communuist rule was slowly unraveling. He gained German citizenship in 2001.
Nearly one in five people in Germany, a nation of 80 million, are first-, second- or third- generation immigrants. But only a handful have made it into the federal legislature.
There are estimated to be more than 500,000 people of recent African origin in Germany.