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Boere Krisis Aksie uses fake photos in Facebook report on farm attack in South Africa

On 31 January 2019 the South African Boere Krisis Aksie Facebook page posted what it calls an “update” on a “plaasanval” (farm attack) in Lanseria, an area to the west of Johannesburg.

“A violent farm attack took place at about 22:00 on the night of 30 January 2019, on a small holding in Vlakfontein, Lanseria area, Gauteng,” it says.

But it warns: “Photo's not for sensitive viewers.”

Two photos are published in the post. Neither is from South Africa. And both were taken years ago.
 

First photo traced to 2010, in Buenos Aires


The first photo shows blood smeared on a tiled floor.

Using TinEye reverse image search, Africa Check traced the photo to a July 2014 blog post by Anthony J Langford. There, it is credited to richardepowell.wordpress.com. On that site, the photo’s caption is: “Blood performance - kitchen floor - Buenos Aires 2010”. There’s not much more information than that.

But it’s not a photo of the aftermath of a “violent farm attack” that took place “on the night of 30 January 2019” in the Lanseria area of Gauteng.
 

Second photo of unidentified crime scene, 2014


The second photo is of blood on a kitchen cabinet and floor.

We traced it to the blog A Mothers Love. The blog’s home page offers a link to a gallery of new gruesome crime scene photos ... 18 years or older to enter. There are no details on when or where the crime scene photos were taken. We found the photo used by Boere Krisis Aksie on the gallery’s second page.

It was first published online in 2014.
 

Disservice to victims of attacks


The Boere Krisis Aksie post claims that on 30 January 2019 an elderly man “on a smallholding in Vlakfontein, Lanseria area, Gauteng... sustained gunshots to the chest, both hands, both legs and his wife also shot several times with a gunshot to her stomach” after “five armed and extremely violent gun wielding suspects” entered their house.

There have been no news reports of the incident.

Farm attacks are a reality in South Africa. But untrustworthy reports and fake photos do a disservice to both the victims of these crimes, and the country. 
 


 

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