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 are being buried,” utilizing the picture as a part of a broader argument alleging racially motivated violence towards white residents in South Africa. Nonetheless, the picture Trump displayed was not taken in South Africa in any respect.
In response to CNN, the picture originated from a Reuters video revealed on February 3, exhibiting humanitarian employees lifting physique luggage 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 workforce 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 in regards to 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, advised 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 underneath 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 throughout the aftermath of an M23 assault on Goma. In response to Al Katanty, having access to the scene required coordination with the Worldwide Committee of the Crimson Cross and negotiations with M23 rebels themselves. “Solely Reuters has video,” he stated 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 tough for journalists to get in,” he stated. “To see the picture taken out of context and proven by the president of the US as one thing it’s not was deeply unsettling.”
