Video shows Mozambican police officer stoned to death, not a South African truck driver

“NOT FOR SENSITIVE VIEWERS: A South African truck driver was stoned to death in Maputo by angry protesters as he was on his way to deliver foods from South Africa,” reads an X post published on November 5, 2024. 

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Screenshot of the false X post, taken on November 11, 2024

The post includes a gruesome short clip showing people yelling and throwing rocks at an immobile man dressed in a T-shirt and blue jeans. Someone then turns the motionless man over, showing his bloodied head. 

In another image, a man wearing similar attire is seen sitting with people outdoors at a table full of beverages. 

The X account that shared the post is called “Put South Africa First” and represents a political party by the same name. Much of the content it shares with its 97,000 followers blames foreigners for an array of social problems in South Africa.

AFP Fact Check regularly debunks posts published by the account or supporters.

Other posts where the video appeared circulated widely on X and Facebook.

Election unrest

On November 11, 2024, Mozambique's opposition leader Venancio Mondlane called for protests after the ruling Frelimo party, in power since the country's 1975 independence from Portugal, was declared winner of the election a month earlier (archived here).

Mondlane, who received 20 percent of the vote, alleged the ballot was rigged. 

The unrest that followed has claimed more than 30 lives, according to Human Rights Watch (archived here).

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A police crackdown on protests against Mozambique’s election results has already claimed the lives of at least 30 people (AFP / ALFREDO ZUNIGA)

While a South African trucker was robbed and attacked in Mozambique during the protests, he survived, unlike the man who was stoned.

Stoned in Mozambique 

Mozambique media reported that a plainclothes police officer identified as Valdo Wilson was stoned to death in Malhampsene in Mozambique’s Matola City on November 4, 2024, after he had allegedly shot and killed a young man (archived here). 

In retaliation, the mob attacked Wilson who then tried to deter the crowd by firing his weapon. However, once he ran out of ammunition the community continued their assault.

“Unfortunately, we lost the life of a member of the PRM [police] assigned to the ninth police station,” Maputo provincial spokesperson Carmínia Leite told media a day later.

“We are currently working to verify the truth of what happened.”

Using a combination of keyword searches and reverse image searches, AFP Fact Check found social media posts about the incident in Portuguese, Mozambique’s national language.

Wilson was described in these posts as a local police officer, not a South African truck driver.

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Screenshot of a Facebook post describing the man as Valdo Wilson

Among various clips and images in the posts was a longer version of the same distressing footage of his death.

We matched Wilson's shirt when he died to an image from another post showing him in the same shirt at a social event.

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Comparison of Wilson when he was alive (left) wearing the same T-shirt when he died (right)

As AFP reported on November 5, 2024, Mozambique’s Defence Minister Cristovao Chume confirmed a police officer had been stoned to death by a mob (archived here).

“We must all say enough is enough to this bloodbath against police and civilians,” Chume said at a press briefing.

SA robbery survivor

In the same week, South African media reported on an incident involving a South African truck driver who survived an attack in Mozambique (archived here).

According to the articles, a group of young men armed with knives and machetes attacked and robbed Andrew Tema on his way back to South Africa after offloading his truck in Maputo on November 6, 2024.

He was rescued by cross-border taxi operators and South African colleagues the next day.

South African broadcaster News 24 ran an interview Tema after Wilson had been killed (archived here).

Anti-immigrant sentiment in South Africa remains high, fuelled by the country's spiralling unemployment rate and an influx of economic migrants (archived here).

Ahead of the country's general election in May 2024, Human Rights Watch warned that candidates risked stoking xenophobic violence by scapegoating and demonising foreign nationals (archived here).