(AFP) – US President Donald Trump brandished a stack of printed articles at the White House Wednesday that he claimed documented a genocide taking place against white people in South Africa. Mixed into the deck of papers he unveiled before South African leader Cyril Ramaphosa, however, was a months-old blog post featuring a photo from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“Death of people, death, death, death, horrible death, death,” Trump said as he flipped through the headlines, which he said were published in “the last few days.” “These are all people that recently got killed.” Trump and his allies have spread baseless claims of a “genocide” targeting white farmers in South Africa, claims that the government in Pretoria has dismissed as false.
At the bilateral meeting in the Oval Office on Wednesday, the US president held up a February article about tribalism in Africa from a little-known website called “American Thinker.” It featured a blown-up image showing Red Cross workers in protective gear handling body bags. “Look, here’s burial sites all over the place,” said Trump. “These are all white farmers that are being buried.”
But the image is a screengrab from a February YouTube video of Red Cross workers responding after women were raped and burned alive during a mass jailbreak in the Congolese city of Goma, according to its caption. The Indian news outlet WION published the video, using footage supplied by Reuters. Overall, about 75 people are murdered every day in South Africa, most of whom are young black men in urban areas, according to police figures.
– Bill MCCARTHY
© 2024 AFP
