Fact-Check Dispatch: Trump's false white genocide claims, UN's '14,000 babies' confusion, and how Russians are buying luxury from the West
Issue 21 of the Fact-Check Dispatch
Comments from the world’s highest offices required clarification and fact-checking this week, not least a bizarre briefing in the Oval Office in which Donald Trump dimmed the lights and showed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa a series of images that were old and misrepresented, as evidence of one of his latest narratives about a genocide on white people in the country.
There was also an unfortunate confusion about the very real and dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip when a UN chief fumbled his figures on the child malnutrition crisis and severe lack of aid. The figures were later clarified, and still made for stark reading.
And despite the harsh restrictions placed on Russian shoppers since the war in Ukraine began, many of them have still been able to buy Western products, including luxury goods. Just how are they doing it?
Here’s our fact-check dispatch.
Trump’s false ‘evidence’ of white genocide in South Africa
A bilateral meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa spiralled at the White House on May 21, after Trump claimed that white farmers in the African nation were being killed and “persecuted”.
Politicians and members of the press had gathered in the Oval Office on Wednesday for a meeting which was expected to ease tensions between the two countries, a week after Trump granted asylum to 54 Afrikaners who he claimed were discriminated against in the country.
As the meeting progressed, Trump surprised the room when he instructed a White House staffer to “Turn the lights down” in the Oval Office.
As the lights dimmed in the room, a TV displayed video footage of South African politician and the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters party, Julius Malema, in which Malema is heard repeatedly saying to followers at a rally to “kill the farmer” and “kill the Boer.”
A second video on the screen, played from an X account, showed an aerial video of a road surrounded by agricultural land. The footage appeared to show dozens of vehicles stopped in the area, with white crosses on both sides of the road. Trump said they were “burial sites” of over 1,000 white farmers, and that the cars were mourners coming to pay respects at the graves.
President Ramaphosa said: “Have they told you where that is, Mr. President?, to which Trump replies “No”. Ramaphosa adds: “I’d like to know where that is..because this I’ve never seen.”
“I mean, it’s in South Africa,” Trump replies, to which Ramaphosa says, “We need to find out”.
Derek Bowler from Eurovision News Spotlight carried out a reverse image search on the aerial video that showed white crosses along a roadside. That brought up a news article from 2020, about a husband and wife who were murdered on their farm in Newcastle, South Africa, during a farm attack.
The white crosses did not represent “burial sites”, but were a temporary memorial to represent the lost lives of farmers after that 2020 double murder. The cars were there for a memorial procession for the couple.
At BR24’s #Faktenfuchs, Michael Schlegel writes that other images were shown in the White House that Donald Trump claimed showed “war crimes” against white farmers, including a printed out picture of body bags that had come from a news video. “The video shows footage from Reuters following a prison break in Congo in which more than 100 women were raped and burned alive,” Schlegel writes.
He also cites a quote by the video journalist who filmed the footage for Reuters, Djaffar Al Katanty, who told the news agency: “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.”
Another part of the video showed by Trump involved South African politician Julius Malema proclaiming the slogan: “Kill the boer, kill the farmer”. Astrid Prange de Oliveira from Deutsche Welle explains that the phrase comes from an Apartheid-era song, which has been classified as hate speech in South Africa on several occasions.
Malema was a member of the South African ruling party ANC, but was expelled in 2012 and later founded a more hard-left communist party, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). Ramaphosa has distanced himself from such statements, saying they are not government policy.
The story was also covered by María José Artuch at VerificaRTVE, who gave some background on the existing tensions between the U.S. and South Africa. “Trump signed an executive order cutting financial aid to South Africa and ordering refugee status and asylum in the US for Afrikaners,” she writes, adding: “Trump has also harshly criticised the South African government for its ‘aggressive’ stance toward the U.S. and its allies, citing as examples the complaint against Israel for genocide before the International Court of Justice and the strengthening of relations with Iran.”
Artuch writes: “South Africa has rejected these accusations and, in response to Trump's executive order, declared it ‘ironic’ that he would grant refugee status in the U.S. to a group that remains among ‘the most economically privileged’, while ‘deporting vulnerable people from other parts of the world’.”
For RTÉ Clarity, Laura Fletcher writes: “South African tech billionaire and ally and adviser to Donald Trump Elon Musk was present at the press conference in the Oval Office on Wednesday … it’s notable that many of the videos that made it into President Trump's montage were clips reposted by Mr Musk in recent months.”
Musk, who has been labelled by his own AI, Grok, as one of the worst spreaders of misinformation on his X platform, has railed against what he describes as the “genocide of white people in South Africa”.
He has also said his satellite internet service Starlink was “not allowed to operate in South Africa simply because I’m not Black”. The country’s communications authority said Starlink never submitted an application, but it is true that South African law requires investors to give local Black firms a 30% stake in their businesses, in a bid to tackle racial injustices of the past. Fletcher writes: “Such policies are a core pillar of the ANC after the end of Apartheid rule in 1994, but are very much at odds with the Trump administration's abhorrence of all things ‘diversity and inclusion’.”
At a time when every issue is so highly politicised, fact-checkers and journalists find themselves having to dive deep into almost everything the U.S. President says. In wielding such immense power, Trump is already making major changes to U.S. foreign policy, global geopolitics and economies around the world, some of which are based on false narratives such as this one.
Confusion over comment that ‘14,000 babies will die in 48 hours’
It was a major headline during the week: “UN says 14,000 babies could die in Gaza in next 48 hours.”
The figure came from chief of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Tom Fletcher, who told the BBC: “There are 14,000 babies that will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them.”
He was appealing for aid to be allowed into the Gaza Strip, after almost three months of a total blockade by Israeli forces which saw the Palestinian enclave come close to famine. The comments came during a week of growing international pressure on Israel to allow the free flow of aid. On May 19, Israel announced it would allow limited aid into Gaza, but the first day only saw five trucks cross into the Strip.
Nathan Gallo from France 24’s The Observers writes that when asked for clarification by the BBC, the UN’s OCHA said the figure came from an IPC report.
“In its latest report on the Gaza Strip, published May 12, the IPC states that the enclave is ‘still confronted with a critical risk of famine’, adding that ‘the entire population is facing high levels of acute food insecurity, with half a million people (one in five) facing starvation’,” Gallo writes.
“As to the number of malnourished children, the IPC reports that 14,100 children aged 6 months to 5 years old are actually experiencing ‘severe acute malnutrition’.”
So what about the 48 hours statistic? France 24 contacted the IPC, which clarified the statement, saying: “If they don't get access to enough food, these children are at risk of death if they're not treated over a one-year period.”
Armêl Balogog from Radio France’s Vrai ou Faux writes that “the IPC states that 14,100 cases of severe acute malnutrition are likely to occur among children aged 6 months to 5 years between April 2025 and March 2026, i.e., in one year, if the situation does not change. This is not a risk of imminent death, but it is still an extremely critical situation.”
Balogog writes that the UN office explained to the BBC that they needed to save an estimated 14,000 severely malnourished babies, and that they need the aid as quickly as possible, ideally in the next 48 hours. “During his interview, Tom Fletcher must have gotten confused by all these figures,” Balogog surmises.
“Since then, the UN's appeal has been heeded by Israel. Humanitarian aid was able to resume in Gaza on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, after two and a half months of total blockade, but it is trickling in. Time will tell if this will be enough to save these 14,000 young children from starvation.”
How Russians are shopping for Swedish luxury
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine over three years ago, it has become much harder for Russians to buy products from Europe.
The EU responded to the war with 17 different sanctions packages. Online shopping has been severely restricted, and Russian bank cards were excluded from the international SWIFT system — a measure aimed to stop money flowing to Russian companies and make trade with the West more difficult.
On top of all this, sanctions were placed on the export of luxury to Russia, covering goods like shoes, clothing and bags costing over €300 or electronics valued at over €750.
Despite all this, people inside Russia are still buying luxury goods, including from Sweden, Maria Lapenkova writes for SVT Verifierar. But just how are they doing it?
One method is the use of personal shoppers, who buy the goods abroad and ship them to Russia. Lapenkova was able to find thousands of these accounts when searching a popular hashtag for the service.
Another method is a service offered by Russian courier company CDEK, which helps people to buy goods located outside Russia and delivers them on request.
Lapenkova writes that the Russian government has also found ways to circumvent trade sanctions. In May 2022, Russia legalised parallel imports, which means that companies can import Western goods without approval from the manufacturers. This applies to a wide range of goods, as long as they enter via another country.
“This loophole is used by Russia's largest online stores, Wildberries and Ozon, which buy foreign goods in large quantities through parallel imports and stock them. Russians who shop in Russian online stores therefore buy products that are already available in Russia - making the shopping experience as smooth as any domestic e-commerce.”
Although parallel imports don’t technically violate EU sanctions, they could undermine the purpose of the restrictions, Lapenkova writes. For Western brands, it also means their products may still be ending up on Russian shelves without their will or even knowledge.