US President Donald Trump caused controversy on Wednesday when he displayed a stack of printed articles during a White House meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, asserting that a genocide against white people is underway in South Africa. However, among the papers Trump presented was an outdated blog post featuring an image from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), not South Africa.
As Trump flipped through the documents, he repeatedly emphasised the word “death,” claiming the headlines documented recent killings of white farmers in South Africa. The image he highlighted, purportedly showing burial sites for white farmers, was actually a screenshot from a February YouTube video showing Red Cross workers in protective gear attending to victims after a mass jailbreak in the Congolese city of Goma.
The video, originally published by Indian news outlet WION with footage from Reuters, depicted humanitarian aid workers responding to horrific violence in the DRC — unrelated to South Africa. The South African government has dismissed claims of a targeted “genocide” against white farmers as unfounded.
Statistics indicate that around 75 people are murdered daily in South Africa, with the majority being young black men in urban areas, according to official police data. Trump’s use of the misleading image has drawn criticism for perpetuating false narratives following ongoing tensions about race and crime in South Africa.
