Trump Falsely Claims White Genocide in South Africa During Meeting With Ramaphosa Using Misidentified Congo Footage

Trump met with Ramaphosa and fabricated Reuters footage from Congo to show that white farmers were being killed in South Africa.

US President Donald Trump displayed a misidentified photo as purported proof of mass murders of white farmers in South Africa during a contentious meeting at the White House on Wednesday. Fact-checkers and academics have long refuted this conspiracy theory.

Trump displayed a printout of a snapshot from a Reuters video captured in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) during his meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office. He made a false allegation that the video showed the burial of white South African farmers.

Trump said, “These are all white farmers being buried,” while displaying the picture to Ramaphosa. The video, which was actually shot in Goma, eastern Congo, after a fatal onslaught by M23 rebels backed by Rwanda, shows aid workers carrying body bags following fierce clashes. Journalist Djaffar Al Katanty of Reuters shot the original footage, which was released on February 3.

Considering the entire world, President Trump attempted to persuade President Ramaphosa that Black people are killing white people in his nation by using my picture and the footage I took in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Al Katanty stated. It was really challenging for reporters to enter that day. To be permitted to film, I had to bargain directly with M23 and work with the ICRC. The only video is from Reuters.

The photograph was acquired from a blog post by the conservative website American Thinker, which linked to Reuters’ footage on YouTube without labeling the image. While acknowledging that Trump had “misidentified the image,” Andrea Widburg, managing editor of American Thinker, defended the article’s larger theme about purported pressure on white South Africans and harshly criticized Ramaphosa’s administration.

Trump disrupted the meeting’s televised portion to play the deceptive video and scrolled through printed blog posts and articles, using dramatic phrases like “death, death, death, horrible death,” to bolster the unsubstantiated allegation that white farmers in South Africa are the targets of a systematic campaign of violence.

This conspiracy theory, which has gained popularity among far-right groups, asserts that white South Africans are being targeted for genocide; the South African government and international human rights organizations deny this claim.

The goal of President Ramaphosa’s trip to Washington was to restore stability between the US and South Africa after Trump frequently criticized the country’s land reform laws and racial issues management. South Africa has vehemently opposed any laws or actions that unfairly single out its white minority.

In response to inquiries about the incident, the White House has not commented.

Reuters has reaffirmed that the footage used in the picture was unrelated to events in South Africa and verified its authenticity and place of origin.