The video of two bloodied women being beaten and sexually assaulted was shot on a road near Kampala. There’s no evidence that anyone involved was South African or Nigerian.

MARY ALEXANDER • 11 JUNE 2024

Warning: This report fact-checks and links to distressing imagery that includes sexual assault.

A video of a group of men assaulting two naked and bleeding women on a road has been circulating on X/Twitter since May 2024 with the claim that the men are Nigerian and the women South African.

A male voiceover says:

There’s a trend in Nigeria whereby two South African ladies were killed by Nigerian men, saying that they are paying revenge for their brothers who were killed in South Africa. When I say ‘brothers’ I’m talking about those drug dealers who were killed by South Africans.

He adds: “Guys, please, especially our ladies, stop dating Nigerians, guys. Stop dating these bastards. They will promise you marriage, good life, and take you to Nigeria only to kill you …”

The video has been posted with comments such as:

• They say that 2 South African women were killed in Nigeria as a form of revenge against Nigerians who were killed in South Africa.
• South African Ladies I say you must stop dating Nigerians cause you will be killed like these girls in Nigeria.
• South African jollofinas they went with their boyfriends to Nigeria and when they there their boyfriends turned their backs against them as usual …
• Jollofinas are being killed in Nigeria, ne ba ya kae [it doesn’t stop]?

Jollofina is an insulting and offensive term for a South African woman believed to have a reputation for dating Nigerian men.

Screengrabs of the video have been posted on Facebook with a similar claim.*

“IF BEING A SOUTH AFRICAN or TSWANA WOMAN IN NIGERIA IS A CRIME THAN WHY DO WE HAVE THEM HERE,” a typical caption reads. “NIGERIAN MEN allegedly Drage Two Woman believed to be MZANSI Women. Moping The Street With Their Bood.”

Setswana is a language spoken in South Africa and neighbouring Botswana. Mzansi is an informal name for South Africa.

Xenophobic killings in South Africa

South Africa has a long history of xenophobic violence against migrants from elsewhere on the continent, including Nigeria.

Since 1994, according to the Xenowatch project at Wits University in Johannesburg, “tens of thousands of people have been harassed, attacked, or killed because of their status as outsiders or foreign nationals”.

Xenowatch has recorded a total of 672 migrant deaths in South Africa from 1994 to May 2024 as a result of xenophobic violence.

And a common xenophobic stereotype in South Africa is that Nigerians are drug dealers.

But does the video really show two South African women being murdered by men in Nigeria, as “revenge for their brothers who were killed in South Africa”?

Vigilantes strip, beat suspected robbers on Ugandan highway

Comments on the video and the screengrabs indicate that it was filmed in Uganda.

One points to the blue stripes on a nearby minibus taxi, stripes commonly seen and required by law on commuter taxis in Uganda. These are not seen on minibuses in Nigeria.

Another includes a screenshot of an article headlined: “2 women stripped naked and beaten in public for allegedly stealing in Uganda.”

The article was published on Wow News in 2022. It includes a video of the same incident shot from a different angle, as well as photos that match the viral video.

A search for the headline led Africa Check to several news reports on the incident, which took place on 5 October 2022.

The women were reportedly part of a group of four, including two men, who had robbed taxi passengers along the northern bypass in the Kira municipality of Kampala, Uganda’s capital. When caught, all four were stripped.

“Two naked male suspects were dumped in a swamp while the crowd continuously beat and filmed two women,” one report reads. “Whenever the female suspects attempted resisting the order to expose their private parts, the crowd responded with caning.”

There was no report that the women were killed. Ugandan police opened a case of attempted murder and indecent assault against the assailants.

The video was shot in Uganda, not Nigeria. There’s no evidence that anyone involved was South African or Nigerian.

* 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 18 June 2024