London: The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office website has had a racial epithet removed as a result of a story in The Independent newspaper.

A 2012 article by the then-British ambassador to Somalia contained the word, a derogatory term for people of African descent. It was found in the comments section below the article.

Other comments on the 11-year-old article included references to Somalis as "very cunning and greedy people" and Somalia as a nation that required "saving from itself."

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After The Independent brought it to their attention, the FCDO removed the offensive term from the website and reiterated that all content must go through a moderation process.

"Our gov.uk moderation policy makes clear we do not tolerate offensive or inflammatory language," a spokesperson for the FCDO said in a statement. These 2012 blog comments that failed to live up to those standards have since been taken down.

The British government stated last week that  it was "confident" the word did not appear in any other documents and that it was not necessary to review or investigate the documentation.

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However, an investigation by The Independent last week found that the word had also been used in documents from 2010 and 2012 by the Department for Work and Pensions as well as in a comment on a blog post from 2015 titled "Equality in the Civil Service: Talking about Race."

The DWP launched an investigation into how the document was able to remain in circulation for so long, and the Met Office issued an apology "for any offence caused" by the language used in its report.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has criticised the word as "inappropriate and offensive," but despite this, politicians from various parties have demanded a government-wide review of official documents due to its widespread use.

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"A Conservative government that has previously refused to acknowledge the existence of structural racism must take swift action. A Labour spokesperson told The Independent, "Labour is serious about eradicating the structural racial inequality that afflicts our society and will introduce a landmark Race Equality Act to tackle it at source.

"These revelations are truly shocking, racist terms and racism in any form has absolutely no place in our society or our government," said Liberal Democrat MP Christine Jardine.