Trump blunder as 'mass burial' images shown to South African leader are from wrong country

Donald Trump shows photos of alleged White farmers murdered in South Africa (Image: Getty)

Donald Trump made a major blunder at the White House during his meeting with South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa. The meeting turned confrontational after the US President presented his guest with alleged evidence of genocide committed against White South African farmers.

In a moment that caught Ramaphosa and his delegation by surprise, Trump showed a screenshot of a video he claimed showed a mass grave of White farmers. “These are all white farmers that are being buried,” Trump said as he glowered at his South African counterpart. However, the video - shot by Reuters - recorded the aftermath of an attack by a Rwanda-backed rebel paramilitary group in Congo.

An M23 rebels in Goma (Image: Getty)

Published by the international news agency on February 3, the video showed humanitarian workers lifting body bags in the Congolese city of Goma.

The image was pulled from footage of a mass burial following an M23 rebel assault on Goma, filmed by video journalist Djaffar Al Katanty.

Al Katanty was stunned to see his video used during the meeting.

“In view of all the world, President Trump used my image, used what I filmed in DRC to try to convince President Ramaphosa that in his country, White people are being killed by Black people," he said.

The screenshot seemingly used by the US President during the White House meeting appears to have been taken by a blog published by a conservative online magazine called the "American Thinker".

The blog post did not caption the image but identified it as a “YouTube screen grab” with a link to a video news report about Congo on YouTube, which credited Reuters.

Andrea Widburg, the author of the post and managing director at the online magazine, told Reuters that the US President had “misidentified the image”.

However, she defended the post, saying it had “pointed out the increasing pressure placed on white South Africans".

During the White House meeting, Trump also showed Ramaphosa a video, which showed rows of white crosses.

The US President claimed these were the "burial sites" of "over a thousand White farmers".

However, a BBC report identified the crosses as part of a memorial to a couple who were killed in 2020.

While South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world, most of the victims are Black.

Of the more than 26,000 murders committed in 2024, eight of those were of farmers, according to South African Police Service (SAPS) figures.