Former South African president Thabo Mbeki is target of false death reports

“Thabo Mbeki, Former South African President, Dies at 74 (sic),” reads the text on a TikTok video posted on January 3, 2024. The post was shared more than 1,100 times before it was taken down.

Image

Screenshot showing the false post, taken on January 5, 2024

The video contains a clip with the GBC logo on the top left. 

It features a news anchor announcing that “former South African president Thabo Mbeki has died ... at the age of 74…” 

Posts sharing the claim were also published on Facebook and X.

Recurring hoax

Mbeki, who succeeded South Africa's first black leader in Nelson Mandela, served as the country’s second post-apartheid president from 1999 until 2008.

This is not the first time that he has been the subject of a death hoax. 

In 2021, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, false rumours circulated that he had succumbed to the virus (archived here).

A few years earlier, in 2016, GBC erroneously announced that Mbeki had died. The false news was first reported by a website imitating a leading and credible South African news site (archived here).

The latest claim that Mbeki had died is also a hoax.

Mbeki alive

On January 5, 2024, the Thabo Mbeki Foundation told AFP Fact Check that the former president is “alive and well”.

“We categorically deny these reports and wish to assure the public that president Mbeki is in good health,” the foundation said.

It also released a statement on its official X account denying the rumours (archived here). 

“This is not the first time such fabricated reports have surfaced; we once again reiterate that they are misleading and harmful,” the statement reads. 

The false posts also claimed that Mbeki died aged 74, which is incorrect. The former president turned 81 in June 2023 (archived here).