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The post, shared more than 2,300 times, features 30 seconds of footage showing a crowd watching several men burn themselves alive in the street. Their bodies burn under piles of used tires as an individual tries to escape the flames but is beaten until he can’t move. Blood stains the street.
Ekpa is no stranger to misrepresentations and has been debunked by AFP Fact Check (including here, here and here). He is the self-proclaimed leader of a faction of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), which is fighting for the independence of the southeast. Nigeria.
Supporters of the secessionist party are resorting to disinformation to further their cause.
Anti-foreigner sentiment has grown in years as South Africans face persistent unemployment, inequality and a bleak economic outlook.
Politicians fanned the flames, scapegoating foreigners for major crimes and the collapse of overburdened public services.
These emerging tensions have triggered deadly attacks on immigrants (archived here).
In April 2022, a Zimbabwean man was burned alive in a town north of Johannesburg (archived here). Nigerians and their businesses have also been targeted in riots that go beyond xenophobes.
However, the claim that the video shows Nigerians lynched in South Africa is false.
To verify this claim, AFP Fact Check took a screenshot of the misleading video and performed a search for the opposite symbol.
The effects showed that it was posted on the “Documenting Reality” online page along with several other short videos on April 24, 2023 (archived here).
The accompanying report, which mentions the Associated Press (AP), said the videos show 13 gang members burned alive in Haiti. The disturbing scenes match those seen in the video shared via Ekpa.
A search for the keyword “Haiti: Thirteen Gang Members Burned Alive” led to a video posted on X on April 24, 2023, via an account called “Edson Samson” (archived here).
The message explained that the photographs showed “police and the population killing and burning the bodies of 14 gang members armed with rifles and pistols” in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.
The video also shows at least two other people dressed in police uniforms kicking the men. At this point, they are still alive and lying on the ground in the middle of a pile of tires.
While not identical, the visual cues in the video match those in Ekpa’s deceptive music video. For example, one of the alleged gang members is dressed in a pair of Nike shoes and camouflage pants.
The keyword search also generated several media reports about a mob killing thirteen gang members in Haiti, adding the AP article discussed on “Documenting Reality” (archived here).
The AP also posted a video of the incident on its official YouTube channel (archived here). We have learned several visual clues that match the photographs through Edson Samson. A black Hyundai SUV, a red car, and a motorcycle are visuals in both clips, for example. .
A guy in yellow boots is seen lying in the black Hyundai 10 seconds after Edson Samson’s video. The same user also appears after 10 seconds in the misleading clip.
Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the Americas, has been ravaged by gang violence, political instability, and herbal mistakes for decades (archived here).
Increased instability following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in February 2023.
The country’s situation worsened in February 2024 when violent gangs like most in Port-au-Prince unleashed a crusade of violence aimed at toppling Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
Henry resigned in April (archived here).