Fake News: South African Minister of Defence Did NOT Say 'Trump Must Not Send Troops To Our Country'

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: South African Minister of Defence Did NOT Say 'Trump Must Not Send Troops To Our Country'

Did Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, the minister of defence and military veterans in South Africa, say that U.S. President Donald Trump should not send troops to the country because their own military was capable enough of ending farm attacks and thefts of livestock? No, that's not true: the story was published by a satirical website from South Africa that earlier posted another hoax story claiming Trump was going to send troops to the country. None of it is real.

The story originated from an article published by News Updates South Africa on August 25, 2018 titled "'Trumps must not send troops to our country, we have our own soldiers who can protect our farms and farmers', Says SA Minister of Defence - News Updates South Africa" (archived here) which opened:

MINISTER of Defence and Military Veterans Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula assured the community of Matatiele that police and soldiers' visibility will assist in ending stock theft and farm attacks.
Speaking in Johannesburg on Saturday morning, Mapisa-Nqakula said she is aware American President Donald Trump is planning to send troops to South Africa to assist with land seizures and farm attacks.

First of all, the fact that the article manages to spell "Trump" as "Trumps" in the headline should be an obvious hint the site is not a reliable source of news. Secondly, no other South African news source has reported on the quote so far. And thirdly, it was the same site that pushed the original hoax that Trump was planning to send troops to begin with:

Fake News: Donald Trump Did NOT Announce

Did U.S. President Donald Trump announce he would be sending troops to South Africa? No, that's not true: the story originated on a known South African satire website. It is not real.

And of course the site comes with an "About Us" page that says:

News Updates South Africa is South Africa's number 1 news satire website.

This indicates the story is not true.

We wrote about newsupdatessa.site before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:

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  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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