South Africa: Two Men Were Shot in Kraaifontein, Cape Town in April 2026, but Viral Footage of the Aftermath Was Ai-Generated

8 May 2026
Africa Check (Johannesburg)
By Keegan Leech

Two men were shot in Kraaifontein, Cape Town in April 2026, but viral footage of the aftermath was AI-generated

IN SHORT: Claims about a shooting that took place in Kraaifontein, a suburb of Cape Town, in April 2026 are partially accurate. But details circulating on social media are unsubstantiated, and some videos and images shared, supposedly of the aftermath, are AI-generated fakes.

An image that appears to show a police officer and forensic investigator standing at a crime scene has been posted on Facebook as showing the aftermath of a shooting.

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The image and a video supposedly taken at the same time are captioned: "Two notorious robbers killed in front of BabuD spazashop in Kraaifontein Cape town."

Spaza shops are small informal supermarkets common in South Africa. Kraaifontein is a town in the larger Cape Town metropolitan municipality in the Western Cape province. Shortly before these images appeared in April 2026, Africa Check debunked false reports of a protest in Kraaifontein that were shared with AI-generated visuals.

The video, and an image on which it appears to be based, have been created with artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and don't show a real location or event. However, some of the details circulating on social media are accurate.

Video and image AI-generated

The image and video posted to Facebook include numerous errors which indicate that they have been AI-generated.

Some of these include obvious discrepancies between the image and caption. For example, while the caption on both the video and image say that two men were killed in front of a spaza shop named "BabuD", both show a building with a sign reading "Thandi's Spaza Shop".

Other errors, such as a police uniform that doesn't match actual South African Police Service (SAPS) emblems or insignia, don't match up with reality. The same goes for the distorted and illegible text on crime scene tape, police uniforms and background signage.

Many details are simply nonsensical. There is a white chalk outline of a body on the ground, cordoned off behind police tape, but it has cartoonish proportions and is far smaller than the police officer and forensic expert standing over it.

In the video, a police officer can be heard speaking loudly and clearly with no background noise, as though directly into a microphone. Seemingly addressing no one, he barks out what sound like lines from a detective film without waiting for responses: "Walk through this, what do we have? The victim fell here. No casings. Good, check for prints."

All of these unrealistic details show that the image and video, at least, are fakes. However, there is some truth to the story behind them.

Shooting real, but details uncertain

Warning: The links below are to an image which some may find distressing.

A shooting did take place in Kraaifontein on 12 April, and actual photographs of the aftermath were shared on Facebook. Photographs of two bodies covered by blankets were shared online on the day of the shooting, and one was later published by tabloid newspaper the Daily Sun.

A building in the background of one of the photos is visually similar to Google Street view images of a building identified on Google Maps as "Baba D", located less than 200 metres away from the Kraaifontein police station. A witness told the Daily Sun that the shooter "was walking towards BabaD spaza shop when he saw these boys sitting near the shop. He opened fire and shot at one of them. The other one tried to run but he shot at him, and he died a few metres away".

Sgt Wesley Twigg, SAPS media liaison officer for the Western Cape, told Africa Check that "two males aged 18 and 20 were shot and fatally wounded". He said that while two counts of murder had been registered, "the circumstances surrounding the incident are under investigation and arrests are yet to be made".

Social media users and Kraaifontein residents quoted by the Daily Sun have claimed that the two victims were "notorious" criminals. However, neither Twigg nor other SAPS spokespeople confirmed whether either victim had been identified or was known to have a criminal record.

Read the original story, with links and other resources.
Africa Check is a non-partisan organisation which promotes accuracy in public debate and in the media. X @AfricaCheck and www.africacheck.org

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