IN SHORT: Social media posts claim that foreign street vendors were violently attacked by an anti-immigrant group in Johannesburg on 12 November 2025. But there is no evidence of this, and the photos used as evidence are a decade old.
Warning: Some of the images linked to in this report are graphic and may be disturbing.
“BREAKING 🚨 Operation Dudula Members Were seen Attacking Foreign Nationals who works as Street Vendors on the streets of Johannesburg earlier today” claim a series of Facebook posts in South Africa from 12 November 2025.
The posts include three photos showing violent attacks, two involving uniformed men. “Some escaped some were heavily injured as they were stoned !” the posts continue.
The photos were circulating widely on social media in the wake of xenophobic flare-ups across South Africa, and the October eviction of foreign traders from a market in the Johannesburg inner city.
But Africa Check’s search revealed the photos to be old or unrelated to the 2025 unrest, and we found no credible reports of violence against Johannesburg street vendors on the day claimed.
Inner city clothing market shut down
The claim may have been prompted by an eviction led by Johannesburg mayor Dada Morero in October, in which metro police shut down a popular informal clothes market in Johannesburg as part of a campaign to “clean up” the inner city.
The Dunusa market was associated with traders from other African countries. The mayor tweeted that the eviction “targeted illegal trading and immigration law violations”. Photos from the event showed metro police officers and trees being planted where the stalls had been. Some inner city traders reported mistreatment and harassment from the police.
But Africa Check found no verified photos of violence or credible reports of attacks linked to these events.
Xenophobic incidents in 2025
Xenophobic violence is not uncommon in South Africa. Xenowatch is a database affiliated to the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. It tracks incidents of xenophobic violence, eviction, harassment, extortion and other discrimination and is updated weekly from news coverage and research publications.
In the first half of 2025, Xenowatch reported 26 xenophobic incidents and 14 deaths nationally. The database has recorded a total of over 128,000 displacements, 5,600 shop lootings and almost 700 deaths since 1994. Most of the reported incidents occur in Gauteng province, particularly in the city of Johannesburg.
Media coverage in 2025 has documented isolated xenophobic attacks. In May, hundreds of immigrants were evacuated from a town in the Eastern Cape province after four foreign migrant workers were killed, reportedly in response to the killing of a South African man, allegedly by a migrant.
Operation Dudula is an anti-immigrant movement that has become known for acts of discrimination and harassment in recent years. In 2025, the group illegally blocked access to healthcare services and schools around the country for people not carrying South African identification documents.
Photos are unrelated to 2025 events
Reverse image searches revealed that two of the photos in the posts appear to show attacks in Kenya. One can be traced back to 2016, from a news report showing photos of Kenyan police attacking protesters during a Nairobi demonstration.
The other similar photo, which shows a protester cowering from a baton-wielding police officer, appeared in an article on police brutality in Kenya from 2017.
The third photo shows a man lying on a street being pelted with stones. It was taken in Johannesburg, during an outbreak of xenophobic violence. But the photo was taken in 2015 during a different outbreak of violence reportedly linked to foreign-owned businesses in the inner city.
At time of publication we had found no evidence showing attacks targeting Johannesburg street vendors in November 2025, and the photos included in the questionable posts were traced back to unrelated old incidents.
Listen to this fact-check in isiZulu courtesy of AmaFacts ayaVUMA on Vuma FM, Mondays at 20h30.
For publishers: what to do if your post is rated false
A fact-checker has rated your Facebook or Instagram post as “false”, “altered”, “partly false” or “missing context”. This could have serious consequences. What do you do?
Click on our guide for the steps you should follow.
Publishers guideAfrica Check teams up with Facebook
Africa Check is a partner in Meta's third-party fact-checking programme to help stop the spread of false information on social media.
The content we rate as “false” will be downgraded on Facebook and Instagram. This means fewer people will see it.
You can also help identify false information on Facebook. This guide explains how.
Add new comment