Mary Alexander • 15 August 2025

A Zimbabwean man died after he was “dragged out of a public hospital by South African Dudula and March March members” claims a caption of a photo circulating on social media since 2 August 2025.

They said he “should go back to Zimbabwe or to a private hospital”, it adds. “[H]ere in the photo of his young daughter standing before his lifeless body.”

In the photo, a man lies on a pavement outside a closed gate at night. A woman stands beside him. Behind the gate we see a long, low building with light coming through its windows.

Zimbabwe, one of South Africa’s northern neighbours, is the top source of migration into South Africa. Census 2022 estimates that more than a million Zimbabweans live in the country, but make up just 1.6% of the total population of 62 million.

Since 2022, the anti-migrant social movement Operation Dudula (isiZulu for “force out” or “knock down”) has tried to block migrants from entering public hospitals and clinics. The campaign has recently ramped up with support from the new March and March movement. It has had dire consequences, with pregnant women forced to give birth alone and babies being denied vaccines.

Healthcare is a human right in South Africa, protected by the constitution and available to all.

South African man survives TB emergency

The claim about the photo has been posted across X (here and here) and Facebook (here, here, here and here). It’s attracted hateful comments on Zimbabweans:

• Good. If they don’t go back main will end up like him. Party is over. Hamba khaya zimbos [Go home Zimbabweans].
• South Africans are happy with the news…. can that happen everyday till they all go back to Zimbabwe.
• [S]outh Africa owes no zimbo free Healthcare
• [I]f he was in his sheethole country he would be still alive i heard you’ve got hospitals
• He should have died in Rhodesia [colonial Zimbabwe].

But other social media users have dismissed the claim as false:

• This is not true and you are talking nonsense, stop this bullshit that you are trying to do.
• This pic is old stupid … You don’t even where does this happen setlaela ke wena [you are a fool].
• Fake. Try again.
• STOP LYING. This photo has been making rounds since years ago about clinic operation hours.
• You’re an opportunistic liar, misusing information to earn your supper …

The photo used in the claim is at left and a Google Street View of the MUCPP Community Health Centre in Mangaung, its gate open, at right. It is the same building, confirming the report that the man was turned away because the clinic only admits maternal emergencies after hours.

Two comments include the link to an article headlined “No more 24-hour health services for some Mangaung residents”, published by Health-e News on 4 February.

Mangaung, which includes the city of Bloemfontein, is a municipality in the Free State province.

The article includes a similar photo of the same man lying on the same pavement next to the same woman.

It says that on the night of 2 January the daughter of the man in the photo brought him to the MUCPP Community Health Centre in Mangaung. He has TB and had suffered some kind of seizure.

The pair were turned away because the clinic has cut back on general emergency care, now only taking maternal emergencies after hours. A passing taxi driver lifted them home. The man was then taken by ambulance to hospital, where after a three-week stay he recovered.

At the time, the incident was reported on a local blog as well as on X and Facebook. The man, whose surname is given as Monnapula, is likely a South African.

A Google Street View of the MUCPP Community Health Centre confirms that it is the same building in the photo.

The claim is false.

The post Zimbabwean dies after Dudula members drag him from South African hospital? No, photo unrelated appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

Mary Alexander • 1 August 2025

“A 35 year old woman was arrested for collecting child support money from eight different men for one child,” reads a message that’s gone viral in South Africa since July 2025.

As evidence, it shows a photo of a woman, her back to the camera, being held by two police officers. A police van is behind them.

It says 35-year-old Nancy Mudau of Limpopo province has received child maintenance from the eight men, who all thought they were the child’s father, for 12 years.

She “used the money to build herself a beautiful house. At the time of her arrest she was busy building a tavern with child support money.”

The claim has spread across Facebook (here, here and here), X (here, here and here), Instagram (here and here) and TikTok (here, here and here), and onto blogs as far afield as Zimbabwe, Ghana and Nigeria.

It has provoked strong reactions. One Facebook user commented: “Vuka Mtomnyama ! Cause of GBV ?” (“Wake up! Cause of gender-based violence?”)

In South Africa both parents – married or not – are responsible for the financial support of their children, according to the Maintenance Act of 1998 and the Children’s Act of 2005. This duty is determined by how much each parent can afford.

But women often struggle to get child support from their children’s fathers, even though failure to pay maintenance could land a person in prison.

Does the photo really show a woman who was arrested for successfully collecting child support from eight different men over 12 years?

Drug bust in Northern Cape

A Google image search of the photo returned a different story.

The photo is more than a year old, and appears in a South African Police Service report on a drug bust in the Northern Cape province on 5 April 2024. Three men were arrested in the town of Pampierstad for possession of crystal meth, and the woman arrested in Hartswater for possession of tablets suspected to be mandrax.

A day later, the Kimberley-based Diamond Fields Advertiser reported the arrests in an article that includes the photo of the woman.

There have been no credible reports of a “Nancy Mudau” from Limpopo being arrested for maintenance fraud. And online searches for the name simply return the claim. It is false.

It first appeared on the Facebook page “Koos de Klerk” on 12 July 2025. The page has almost a quarter of a million followers and is full of sensationalist clickbait posts.

Almost every post includes links to the dodgy job scam websites search67.com and jobsfinder.co.za. The sites have no useful information and are full of ads.

The claim is entirely made up, as part of a scheme to make money from online ads.

The post South African woman arrested for collecting child support from eight men? No, Facebook post a scam appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 22 July 2024

“That Limpopo explosion that took place today is crazy,” reads the caption of a video circulating on social media in South Africa. “Hope everyone who was trying to help survived.”*

The 12-second clip shows a tanker truck burning on the side of a road. It then explodes and flames cover the screen. The rest of the video is the camera tumbling to capture random images as someone cries out.

Limpopo is South Africa’s northernmost province, on the border with Zimbabwe. Some captions put the video’s location as “between Louis Trichardt and Tshakuma”, meaning Tshakhuma, two settlements close to the border.

Others blame South African authorities.

“Why are people of this calibre given responsibility that is clearly beyond them?” one caption reads. “If this is ‘equality’ or ‘equity’ is it is also murder and destruction. It threatens us all in so many ways, but we can’t change the nature of the beast or its privileges.”

But does the video really show a “crazy” explosion in South Africa’s Limpopo province?

Road markings not from South Africa

The viral claim most likely began with a 4 July post by a verified X account.

But in the comments, other X users were quick to call wanya: “You can see Those road markings are not for South African roads.”

Wanya. You can see Those road markings are not for South African roads pic.twitter.com/utJ2HwdD0D

— Schwarzenegger Chauke (@eliotchauke1) July 4, 2024

Another commented: “This is a Propane explosion that happened on the BR-010 near the Paragominas Palace Hotel in Brazil.”

This is a Propane explosion that happened on the BR-010 near the Paragominas Palace Hotel in Brazil. https://t.co/WZsBDMzkGf

— █████ (@SupaJacks) July 4, 2024

The comment includes a link to a Portuguese-language news article that includes the video. Brazil is a country in South America. Its official language is Portuguese.

A machine translation of the headline reads: “Tanker truck explodes after accident on highway in Pará; videos show moment.”

According to the article, the tanker exploded after an accident on a highway between the municipalities of Paragominas and Ulianópolis in Brazil’s northern state of Pará. Three people were injured. The accident was on 3 July, the day before the viral claim popped up online.

A Google search using the keywords “tanker explosion Pará Brazil” led to several other news reports on the incident, all placing it in the South American country.

There have been no news reports of a recent tanker explosion in South Africa’s Limpopo.

EU law threatens X monetisation

One of the comments on the original X post suggests that the false claim is simply to attract attention: “atleast you’ll get the views! Limpopo is Brazil this today?”

atleast you’ll get the views! Limpopo is Brazil this today?

— Dolby wa Moroka(Double Doli) (@DollyBy2) July 4, 2024

Since Elon Musk bought X (then Twitter) in 2022, users have been able to earn money on the platform through subscriptions and advertising. But they have to be verified users, and this monetisation requires high engagement with their posts – views and comments.

There have been concerns that monetisation feeds sensationalist disinformation on the platform.

In October 2023 Musk threatened to demonetise X creators who posted false information. “Any posts that are corrected by Community Notes become ineligible for revenue share,” he posted.

This came after the European Union challenged Musk to clamp down on the site’s false content, illegal under the EU’s Digital Services Act.

The act aims to ensure a “safe, predictable and trusted online environment, addressing the dissemination of illegal content online and the societal risks that the dissemination of disinformation or other content may generate”.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Report published by Africa Check on 13 August 2024

The post ‘Crazy’ tanker truck explosion in South Africa? No, video from Brazil appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 20 JULY 2024

“Settler savages try to tear a Palestinian child apart in the occupied West Bank,” reads the caption for a photo circulating on social media in South Africa and elsewhere since late June 2024.

The photo shows men pulling at the legs of a small person, horizontal and off the ground, while others – obscured by onlookers – pull at the person’s arms. A man in uniform is at left.

On Facebook, the claim has been posted* as a screenshot of a now-deleted X post with comments such as:

• “They will tell you all the Arab hate them and want to anhilate them. If it’s true maybe there ia a strong reason to this….”
• “This is what Zionism has turned them into.”
• “When basic human standards are violated…. The barbaric nature of the Zionist Israeli settlers….”

Israel is a country in the Middle East and the world’s only Jewish state, established within Palestine in 1948. Today, what remains of Palestine is the tiny Gaza Strip to the west and the larger West Bank in the east, so named because it lies on the western bank of the Jordan river.

Since 1967 Israeli settlements have steadily encroached on Palestinian territories, particularly the West Bank. The United Nations human rights commissioner has reported that some 700,000 Israeli settlers are “living illegally in the occupied West Bank”.

On 19 July the UN’s international court of justice gave an advisory opinion that Israel’s presence in occupied Palestinian territories was illegal, and that Israel was obliged to end its presence, evacuate all settlers and stop new settlements.

But does the photo really show settlers trying to “tear a Palestinian child apart in the occupied West Bank”?

Border police halt illegal occupiers during 2009 settlement freeze

A reverse image search reveals that the photo is almost 15 years old, and the person being pulled at is an Israeli settler, not a Palestinian child.

The photo is part of the Getty Images collection of stock photography, credited to AFP photographer Yehuda Raizner and dated 13 September 2009.

Its caption reads: “Israeli settlers try to pull a fellow settler as he is dragged away by border policemen during clashes at the entrance to the illegal outpost of Havat Gilad, west of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, after Israeli police tried to confiscate a truck containing material to build a new house.”

It adds: “The United States has been trying for months to secure an Israeli settlement freeze while pressing Arab states for reciprocal concessions to clear the way for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian talks suspended in late December.”

The 2009 attempt at a settlement freeze was just one of many over decades.

There is no Palestinian child in the photo. The claim is false.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Report published by Africa Check on 30 July 2024

The post Israeli ‘savages’ trying to ‘tear Palestinian child apart’? No, old photo of clash between police and West Bank settlers appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 11 July 2024

Has Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni sent “40 truckloads” of troops to put down the recent finance bill protests in neighbouring Kenya?

That’s the claim in the caption for a photo circulating on social media since 25 June 2024.*

The photo shows a convoy of military and other vehicles on a road, heavily armed soldiers standing around them.

The caption reads: “Museveni sends 40 truckloads of UPDF to ‘quell Kenyan treasonous Gen Z demonstrations’.” One post on X has been viewed almost 500,000 times.

The UPDF is the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces. Gen Z refers to the popular notion of generation Z, young people born from 1997 to 2012.

On 18 June a wave of peaceful protests against the controversial Finance Bill 2024 swept Kenya. The bill proposed increased taxes on essential goods from bread to cooking oil, as well as new taxes on digital revenue and motor vehicles. It also set aside millions of US dollars to renovate State House.

When legislators passed the bill on 25 June the protests – largely led by young people – turned violent. Demonstrators stormed the grounds of parliament, setting part of the building on fire. Police responded with force and five people were shot dead.

President William Ruto denounced the protests as “treasonous”. A day later he said he would not sign the bill into law.

According to Kenya’s human rights commission, at least 39 people were killed in the protests from 18 June to 1 July

But does the photo really show troops from Uganda being sent to “quell Kenyan treasonous Gen Z demonstrations”?

Ugandan peacekeeping force contingent occupies DRC town

A reverse image search reveals that the photo has been online for more than a year, since April 2023. And while it does show Ugandan troops, they are not in Kenya.

The photo appears in several news reports on M23 rebels withdrawing from the town of Bunagana in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in early April of that year. A Ugandan contingent of the East African Community Regional Force then occupied the town.

It was posted on the X account @UPDFspokespersn on 3 April, with the caption: “Yesterday 2nd April 2023, Uganda Contingent of the East African Community Regional Force officially occupied areas of Bunagana Eastern DRC for a peacekeeping Mission in DRC after M23 left the area for UPDF.”

Yesterday 2nd April 2023, Uganda Contingent of the East African Community Regional Force officially occupied areas of Bunagana Eastern DRC for a peacekeeping Mission in DRC after M23 left the area for UPDF. pic.twitter.com/hA0Wi5SYKz

— – (@UPDFspokespersn) April 3, 2023

Conflict between M23 and government forces, supported by regional peacekeeping forces, has been raging in the DRC’s eastern North Kivu province since 2012. The United Nations has found that M23 receives support from Rwanda.

M23 had reportedly held Bunagana, a strategic town in North Kivu, for more than nine months.

There have been no credible news reports of Ugandan troops being sent to quell the protests in Kenya. And the photo was shot in the DRC in 2023.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Published by Africa Check on 15 July 2024

The post Ugandan troops sent to suppress ‘treasonous Gen Z demos’ in Kenya? No, old pic from DR Congo appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 8 JULY 2024

“Young Ukrainian girls are being forced into the military to fight the war against Russia,” reads the caption for a photo doing the rounds on Facebook in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and elsewhere since late June 2024.*

The photo shows a group of young women in camouflage uniform with their heads bowed.

The Russia-Ukraine war in eastern Europe has been waging for more than two years now, since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its western neighbour in February 2022.

The United States and countries of northern and western Europe have supported Ukraine with aid, weapons and military equipment.

The claim has been posted with comments such as:

• “This Conscription Of Young Girls Is One Too Many. Why Force Them?”
• “They have no respect for women, the west is immoral.”
• “Biden is e v i l.”

Joe Biden is the president of the United States.

But does the photo really show “young girls” forced into Ukraine’s military to fight Russia?

Ukrainian military conscripts must be at least 25

A reverse image search reveals that the photo is one of more than 20 showing a ceremony at Kyiv National University’s Taras Shevchenko Military Institute. Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine.

The photos were posted on the institute’s Facebook page on 11 June. The ceremony was to honour fallen graduates.

The viral photo also appears in a Ukrainian-language news report. A machine translation of its caption reads: “On Tuesday, June 11, the Military Institute of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv commemorated the fallen graduates.”

The report adds: “The rector of KNU Volodymyr Bugrov, the management of the military institute, officers, military chaplains, cadets and relatives honoured the fallen soldiers. The military chaplain of the institute Serhiy Dmitriev and other representatives of the clergy read a prayer.”

This can all be seen in the photos on the institute’s Facebook post.

And a closer look at the viral photo reveals that the women are all wearing the emblem of the Taras Shevchenko Military Institute on their left shoulders. Another photo of graduates wearing the same emblem can be seen here.

Ukraine does conscript civilians into the military, but they have to be adults. In April, the minimum conscription age was lowered from 27 to 25.

The women in the photo are student cadets at Kyiv university’s military institute, their heads bowed during a ceremony to honour fallen graduates. They aren’t being “forced into the military to fight the war against Russia”.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Published by Africa Check on 10 July 2024

The post Photo of Ukrainian university cadets, not ‘young girls forced to fight Russia’ appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 20 JUNE 2024

“This is a cultural practice in Namibia,” reads the caption of a video circulating on social media since late May 2024.*

“A bachelor is seduced by the sisters of his intending bride. If he is aroused, the marriage will not go on because they claim he will cheat on his wife.”

In the 20-second clip, a seemingly unconscious man lies on his back while a woman twerks on his lap and another dances with her skirt over his face. Two men next to them loudly play drums.

A woman in the foreground repeatedly turns to giggle towards the camera. People in the background are heard laughing and cheering.

The claim has been posted in countries as far afield as the USA, India, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Nigeria. It can also be seen here, here, here and here.

Namibia is a southern African country on the Atlantic Ocean coast, between Angola to the north and South Africa to the south.

It’s home to just 3 million people, but this sparse population is diverse. Dozens of languages are spoken there. The Namibia Tourism Board, a state agency, describes 12 different cultural groups with roots in the country.

The claim does not specify which Namibian culture has this “practice”.

Does the video really show a “cultural practice in Namibia” – or any country?

‘It’s a wrap!’ at Ugandan music festival

Africa Check ran a screengrab of the video’s first frame through a reverse image search. This led us to a YouTube report on Uganda’s 2019 Ngeye Ngeye music festival.

The video is titled: “NYEGE NYEGE 2019 | UNTOLD SECRETS REVEALED/ FUN MOMENTS | IT’S A WRAP!”

The viral clip begins at the video’s five-minute, 19-second mark.

Uganda is an East African country about a 62-hour drive southwest to Namibia. Uganda’s Nyege Nyege music festival has been held every year since 2015 in Jinja, a southern town near Lake Victoria.

This isn’t the first time the video has been misused. An almost identical claim appeared online in 2019.

It’s also been claimed to show a “tradition”, “marriage rite”, “dowry rite” and “dowry ritual” in Cameroon.

Cameroon is in Central Africa, on Nigeria’s eastern border. You’d have to drive for 58 hours to get from Cameroon to Namibia, and for about 55 hours to get from Cameroon to Uganda.

Africa is the world’s second-largest continent. But misperceptions continue to lump its 55 countries into harmful stereotypes, ignoring its many and complex countries, cultures and people.

The video does not show a “cultural practice”, “tradition”, “rite” or “ritual” in any country, anywhere in the world. It’s just people messing about at a music festival.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Edited version published by Africa Check on 26 June 2024

The post Video of ‘fun moment’ at Ugandan music festival, not ‘cultural practice in Namibia’ appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 20 JUNE 2024

On 3 June 2024 a tornado ripped through towns and settlements in the South African municipality of eThekwini, which includes KwaZulu-Natal province’s port city of Durban.

The twister was part of a major storm, its high winds, heavy rain and sudden flooding killing at least 11 people. Heaviest hit was the eThekwini town of Tongaat, also known as oThongathi.

A tornado is a column of wind rotating at a high speed. They develop during thunderstorms and can cause enormous damage when they hit the ground. Tornadoes are not uncommon in South Africa, particularly in the east of the country.

The South African Weather Service says the oThongathi tornado rated EF3 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, a measure of twisters’ wind speed from one to five. Wind in an EF3 tornado can reach up to 265 kilometres an hour. These “stronger and more destructive” tornadoes only occur every decade or so.

In the week after the tornado hit KwaZulu-Natal, a video appeared on social media with the claim it showed the twister. In the clip we see a tornado barrelling through a settlement, throwing up the debris of destroyed buildings.

It’s been posted with the captions “Tornado KZN 4 June 2024” and “The #tornado seen on camera in KZN Durban”, and the hashtags #tongaattornado and #kzntornado.*

But does the video really show the KwaZulu-Natal tornado?

Drone footage of 2022 tornado in Andover, Kansas

Africa Check took a screenshot of the first frame of the video and ran it through a reverse image search.

This led us to several news reports of a tornado that tore through Andover, a town in the US state of Kansas, in May 2022. They all use the same footage, shot from a drone.

The twister was reportedly also a destructive EF3, but there were no fatalities.

In 2023 Africa Check debunked a claim that the video showed part of the destruction when an earthquake hit Morocco. But it was shot in the United States, not Morocco – or South Africa.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Published by Africa Check on 21 June 2024

The post Tornado video shot in US state of Kansas, not South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 17 JUNE 2024

Warning: This report fact-checks and links to violent and distressing imagery.

“This is the height of savagery. Nigerians reportedly burnt alive in South Africa this morning,” reads the caption of a video posted on X on 15 May 2024.

The graphically violent video is difficult to describe. Two men, one motionless, lie under a pile of tyres that burst into flames. As one rises to escape the fire he is hacked with a machete. The camera pans to show many more bodies on a road. Blood is everywhere.

A screenshot of the X post was shared on Facebook on the same day with the caption: “Nigerians in south Africa.”*

The following day, 16 May, Nigerian separatist Simon Ekba posted the video on X with a lengthy message to Julius Malema, leader of South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) political party. South Africa held elections two weeks later.

The message reads, in part: “Dear @Julius_S_Malema this barbarism by South Africans against fellow Africans is completely unacceptable […] The people these guys are killing are Biafrans and Yorubas, they came to SA with Nigeria identity shouldn’t be a death sentence.”

It was soon reposted across social media with the video or screenshots from it.

Ekpa is the self-proclaimed “prime minister” of a faction of the Indigenous People of Biafra, a secessionist movement that seeks the independence of southeastern Nigeria from the rest of the country. He is a citizen of Finland.

Xenophobia and the ‘burning man’

Outbreaks of xenophobic violence, mainly against people from elsewhere on the continent, have erupted across South Africa for decades.

The infamous 2008 attacks killed 19 foreigners. One was Mozambican Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuave, who was beaten, stabbed and set alight. Photos of flames engulfing a dying Nhamuave – the iconic “burning man” – drew the world’s attention.

Since 1994 “xenophobic discrimination” has killed at least 673 migrants, according to data collected by Wits University’s Xenowatch project.

More recently, anti-migrant sentiment has been taken up by the social movement and unregistered political party Operation Dudula. “Dudula” means “push back” or “force out” in isiZulu. Malema and the EFF have spoken out against Operation Dudula.

But does the viral video really show an attack on Nigerians in South Africa?

‘Mobsters burned alive’ in Haiti

Outbreaks of xenophobic violence in South Africa attract global media attention. Photos of “burning man” Nhamuave, for example, were splashed across newspaper pages the world over in 2008.

But there have been no credible news reports of Nigerians being “burnt alive” in South Africa in May 2024.

Africa Check took screenshots from the video and ran them through reverse image searches. These revealed that it was shot in the troubled Caribbean island country of Haiti in 2023.

A longer version of the video was posted on the website Krudplug on 25 April of that year. Here its description reads:

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI: A mob in the Haitian capital beat and burned 13 suspected gang members to death with gasoline-soaked tires Monday after pulling the men from police custody at a traffic stop, police and witnesses said. The horrific vigilante violence underlined public anger over the increasingly lawless situation in Port-au-Prince where criminal gangs have taken control over an estimated 60% of the city since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

It was also published by the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper in an article dated 1 May 2023, under the headline: “Mobsters burned alive, public stonings, gang-rape, ransom demands and political assassinations: How violence has gripped Haiti – with civilians now carrying out brutal executions to reclaim the streets.”

News reports on the incident can also be seen here, here, here and here.

Social media users have also claimed that the video was recently shot in Mozambique, and in Kenya (here, here and here).

None of this is true. The video shows an attack on gang members in Haiti in 2023.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Edited version published by Africa Check on 20 June 2024

The post Video of vigilante violence in Haiti, not ‘Nigerians burnt alive in South Africa’ appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 5 JUNE 2024

“AMERICAN soldiers watch as RUSSIAN soldiers TAKE OVER a base the US built and paid for in NIGER,” reads the caption for a photo circulating on social media since May 2024.*

The photo shows two people in uniform, their backs to the camera, looking at three armoured vehicles on a dusty road. The vehicles fly the flag of Russia.

Niger is a country in West Africa, bordering Nigeria to the north. In July 2023 the government of its democratically elected president Mohamed Bazoum was ousted in a military coup.

In March 2024 the military government revoked a security pact that had allowed the US to station some 1,000 troops on two bases in Niger to help fight insurgents linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

A month later the US announced it would withdraw its forces from Niger. In May, the two countries agreed that the withdrawal would be complete by 15 September.

In the meantime, military trainers from Russia arrived in Niger “to develop military cooperation between Russia and Niger”. Russian security forces have also been deployed to the same airbase as US troops. The base, outside the capital of Niamey, belongs to the Nigerien airforce.

But does the photo really show Russian soldiers taking over a “base the US built and paid for” in Niger?

May 2020 encounter between troops in northeastern Syria

Africa Check ran the photo through a TinEye reverse image search and sorted the results by date. This revealed that the photo has been online since May 2020 – more than four years ago.

Further searches led us to a Greek-language news report of an encounter between patrolling US and Russian forces in the Middle East country of Syria in May 2020.

Here the photo is credited to Syria-based freelance Agence France Presse photographer Delil Souleiman, who posted it on X (then Twitter).

#US soldiers stand along a road across from #Russian military armoured personnel carriers (APCs), near the village of Tannuriyah in the countryside east of #Qamishli in #Syria‘s northeastern Hasakah province on May 2, 2020.
DELIL SOULEIMAN / #AFP pic.twitter.com/LfNfOj1Xkk

— Delil souleiman (@Delilsouleman) May 2, 2020

“#US soldiers stand along a road across from #Russian military armoured personnel carriers (APCs), near the village of Tannuriyah in the countryside east of #Qamishli in #Syria’s northeastern Hasakah province on May 2, 2020,” the post reads.

The photo can also be seen on the Getty Images stock photo site with a similar caption. It does not show any military base.

In May 2020 Syria was still in the throes of a civil war that began in 2011. Russia gave the Syrian government military support, while the US involvement was largely against the Islamic State and to protect the Kurdish minority.

There were several reports of run-ins between Russian and US troops in Syria’s northeast in 2020.

The photo was shot in Syria in 2020, not in Niger in 2024.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Published by Africa Check on 7 June 2024

The post Russian troops taking over US base in Niger? No, photo shot in Syria appeared first on South Africa Gateway.