Nationwide — Throughout a tense Oval Workplace assembly with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, U.S. President Donald Trump held up a printout of an article that included a screenshot he claimed confirmed mass burials of white South African farmers. Trump asserted, “These are all white farmers which might be being buried,” utilizing the picture as a part of a broader argument alleging racially motivated violence in opposition to white residents in South Africa. Nevertheless, the picture Trump displayed was not taken in South Africa in any respect.
In keeping with CNN, the picture originated from a Reuters video printed on February 3, exhibiting humanitarian employees lifting physique baggage within the metropolis of Goma within the Democratic Republic of Congo. The footage was captured following lethal clashes involving the M23 insurgent group, which is backed by Rwanda. Reuters’ fact-checking crew later confirmed the misidentification.
The article Trump referenced got here from American Thinker, a conservative U.S. weblog, and mentioned racial tensions in each South Africa and Congo. Whereas the publish itself didn’t label the picture particularly, it included a hyperlink to a YouTube video concerning the Congo disaster that featured the Reuters footage. That YouTube clip credited Reuters however didn’t make clear the context of the picture.
The White Home didn’t reply to media inquiries relating to Trump’s mischaracterization. Andrea Widburg, the publish’s writer and managing editor at American Thinker, instructed Reuters that Trump had “misidentified the picture.” She defended the article’s broader claims, nonetheless, saying it addressed rising tensions and challenges confronted by white South Africans beneath what she described as Ramaphosa’s “dysfunctional, race-obsessed Marxist authorities.”
The footage in query was filmed completely by Reuters video journalist Djaffar Al Katanty in the course of the aftermath of an M23 assault on Goma. In keeping with Al Katanty, having access to the scene required coordination with the Worldwide Committee of the Purple Cross and negotiations with M23 rebels themselves. “Solely Reuters has video,” he mentioned of the footage that Trump misused.
Al Katanty expressed shock upon seeing his work misrepresented on such a high-profile platform. “That day, it was extraordinarily troublesome for journalists to get in,” he mentioned. “To see the picture taken out of context and proven by the president of america as one thing it’s not was deeply unsettling.”
