"Racially or religiously motivated violence against any person poses a threat to the entire multicultural community and is a violation of its members' rights," the organization said.
The organization comprising 53 African states made the appeal to the public in the wake of a recent attack on a nine-year-old girl of mixed Russian and African origin, the latest in a string of race-hate attacks in the city.
Unidentified assailants attacked Liliana Sissoko near her apartment building Saturday night. The girl received several knife wounds but was able to get to her apartment, after which she was hospitalized.
Prosecutors said she was in satisfactory condition.
The organization said St. Petersburg had become notorious for attacks on dark-skinned children. One of the most brutal cases involved the death of a Tajik girl, Khursheda Sultonova, in September 2005. Last week, a jury cleared one man of the murder and convicted seven others of hooliganism.
On March 24, a 34-year-old Ghanaian man was beaten up in the Kolpino suburb of St. Petersburg. Two young men have been arrested in connection with the attack, police said.
Other violent attacks on non-white foreigners in St. Petersburg in recent months include an attack on a man from Mali, who was stabbed to death in February, preceded by the murder of a student from Cameroon last December and of a Congolese student in September.
Routine attacks by skinheads and youth gangs on foreigners with non-Slavic features have also been reported in other Russian cities.
The central city of Voronezh alone has seen at least seven apparently racially motivated killings over the past six years, including the murder of a Peruvian student in October last year.
On January 11, 2006, Moscow witnessed a shocking attack on a synagogue by a 20-year-old man who stabbed nine people with a hunting knife.
These incidents have prompted Russian and foreign human-rights groups to raise concerns over the alarming spread of racist and xenophobic attitudes in the country.
