An image used by American president Donald Trump as proof of a white genocide in South Africa, during a meeting with its president Cyril Ramaphosa this week, was removed from the images captured in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a reuters Verification report of the facts found.
The news agency confirmed that the photograph that Trump has shown that Ramaphosa was a screenshot of a Reuters video published on February 3.
According to the agency, the video shows humanitarian workers carrying bodies of bodies in the Congolese city of Goma.
Trump’s printed image was taken from sequences shot after fatal battles with M23 rebels supported by Rwanda in this region, and was filmed by the video journalist Reuters, Djaffar Al Kantanty.
“That day, it was extremely difficult for journalists to penetrate … I had to negotiate directly with M23 and coordinate with the ICRC to be authorized to film,” said Al Katanty.
“Only Reuters has a video,” he continued, adding that it was a shock to see the American president using his image to make unsupported statements.
(LR) The president of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa, the American president Donald Trump and the defense secretary Pete Hegseth and the trade secretary Howard Lutnik speak to journalists from the White House Oval Office on May 21, 2025 in Washington, DC.
SOMODEVILLA / GETTY Images chip
“Given the whole world, President Trump used my image, used what I filmed in the DRC to try to convince President Ramaphosa that in his country, whites are killed by blacks,” said Al Kantanty.
However, Trump said in the oval office that the image showed that the bodies of persecuted farmers in South Africa because they are white, a conspiracy theory that has circulated among the far-right for years and is based on false claims.
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The photo presented in Ramaphosa by Trump was published alongside a blog article written by American Thinker, a conservative online publication covering violent conflicts and racial tensions in South Africa and Congo, which in turn pulled the image of a Reuters video report on Youtube.
In a written statement to the news agency, the author and editor-in-chief of American Thinker’s article Andrea Widburg, said that President Trump had “poorly identified the image”, but added that his message was referring to what he says is “his content from Ramaphosa, dysfunctional, obsessed with South Africans”.
The Trump administration did not respond to a request for comments from Reuters.
The president also showed Ramaphosa a five -minute video which, according to him, was also proof of a white genocide in the country.
The images have shown a populist politician playing a controversial anti-apartheid song which includes lyrics on the death of a farmer.
“People flee South Africa for their safety,” said Trump following brief screening, before insisting that the video represents the graves of a thousand white farmers.
However, according to The guardianThe images were taken on a highway connecting the small towns in Newcastle and Norman in South Africa and showed a memorial, not a burial place.
In addition, Rob Hoatson, who set up the memorial to attract public attention, told the BBC that it was not a burial site.
Shortly after the meeting, the White House published the video on its official account X. (Nothing presented in the video was proven or corroborated by any authority.)
During the meeting, Ramaphosa said he was visiting Washington to “reset” and “recalibrate” the relationship between the United States and South Africa and to advance trade relations.
Tensions were strengthened between the two nations earlier this month after President Trump gave American citizenship to a group of South African white Afrikaners who claim to be persecuted at home.
The first group of Afrikaners of South Africa to arrive for resettlement listens to the remarks of the US deputy secretary of State Christopher Landau and the US Deputy Secretary of Internal Security Troy Edgar (both out of the executive), after their arrival at Washington Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia, on May 12, 2025.
Saul Loeb / Getty Images
Meanwhile, Trump said that the goal of meeting was to smooth the fears of the African nation, declaring: “We have many people who are very concerned about South Africa.”
Before Trump could answer a question asked by a journalist from NBC concerning his white genocide claims and how he could be convinced that such a tragedy did not take place, the intervention of Ramaphosa.
“I can answer this,” he said, adding that Trump must listen, above all, to the stories and testimonies of the South African delegation present at the Oval Office.
– with files from the Associated Press and Reuters
& Copy 2025 Global News, A Division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
