No, video shows 2023 violence in Haiti - not 'Nigerians burnt alive in South Africa' in 2024
IN SHORT: A video clip of vigilante violence has been posted widely on social media, most recently with the claim it shows Nigerians 'burnt alive' in South Africa. But this is not true.
Warning: This report fact-checks and links to violent and distressing imagery.
"This is the height of savagery. Nigerians reportedly burnt alive in South Africa this morning," reads the caption for a video posted on X (formerly Twitter) on 15 May 2024.
The graphically violent video is difficult to describe. Two men, one motionless, lie under a pile of tyres that burst into flames. As one rises to escape the fire he is hacked with a machete. The camera pans to show many more bodies on a road. There is blood everywhere.
A screenshot of the X post was reposted on Facebook on the same day with the caption: "Nigerians in south Africa."
The following day, 16 May, Nigerian separatist Simon Ekba posted the video on X with a lengthy message to Julius Malema, leader of South Africa's Economic Freedom Fighters political party. South Africa held elections two weeks later.
The message reads, in part: "Dear @Julius_S_Malema this barbarism by South Africans against fellow Africans is completely unacceptable [...] The people these guys are killing are Biafrans and Yorubas, they came to SA with Nigeria identity shouldn't be a death sentence."
It was soon reposted across social media with the video or screenshots from it.
Ekpa is the self-proclaimed "prime minister" of a faction of the Indigenous People of Biafra, a secessionist movement that seeks the independence of southeastern Nigeria from the rest of the country. He is a citizen of Finland.
Xenophobia and the 'burning man'
For decades, South Africa has experienced xenophobic violence, mostly targeting people from other parts of the continent.
The infamous 2008 attacks killed 19 foreigners, including Mozambican Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuave, who was beaten, stabbed and set on fire. Photos of a dying Nhamuave, known as the "burning man", captured the world's attention.
Since 1994 at least 673 migrants have been killed in South Africa as a result of "xenophobic discrimination", according to data collected by the Xenowatch project at the University of the Witwatersrand.
More recently, anti-migrant sentiment has been taken up by the social movement and political party Operation Dudula. "Dudula" means "push back" or "force out" in isiZulu. Malema and the EFF have spoken out against Operation Dudula.
But does the viral video really show an attack on Nigerians in South Africa?
'Mobsters burned alive' in Haiti
Outbreaks of xenophobic violence in South Africa attract global media attention. Photos of Nhamuave, for example, were published prominently in newspapers the world over in 2008.
But there have been no credible news reports of Nigerians being "burnt alive" in South Africa in May 2024.
Africa Check took screenshots from the video and ran them through a reverse image search. This revealed that it was shot in the Caribbean island country of Haiti in 2023.
A longer version of the video was posted on the website Krudplug on 25 April of that year. Here its description reads:
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI: A mob in the Haitian capital beat and burned 13 suspected gang members to death with gasoline-soaked tires Monday after pulling the men from police custody at a traffic stop, police and witnesses said. The horrific vigilante violence underlined public anger over the increasingly lawless situation in Port-au-Prince where criminal gangs have taken control over an estimated 60% of the city since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
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It was also published by the UK's Daily Mail newspaper in an article dated 1 May 2023, under the headline: "Mobsters burned alive, public stonings, gang-rape, ransom demands and political assassinations: How violence has gripped Haiti - with civilians now carrying out brutal executions to reclaim the streets."
News reports on the incident can also be seen here, here, here and here.
Social media users have also claimed that the video was shot in Mozambique and in Kenya (here, here and here).
None of this is true. The video shows an attack on suspected gang members in Haiti in 2023.
