An article and picture published by Citizen Witness website on 19th November 2021 claiming that a woman sought to be buried alive over frustration over her children’s unemployment was fake.
The article reported that the unnamed woman from Nyamira County, went berserk after her four graduate children failed to secure employment in the County Government of Nyamira.
“Woman in Nyamira wants to be buried alive after her 4 children, all with degrees, failed to secure employment in the county government of Nyamira due to lack of resources and connections,” the article reads. “She rubbed herself in the blanket ready for burial but no one is ready to bury her yet.”
The article is accompanied with a photo of a body wrapped in cloth. The post was also shared on by a number of Facebook users.
A factcheck, however, reveals both the article and image are fake.
First, the article is shallow on details: the story doesn’t name the woman nor give the specific location of the events. Also an online search reveals the Nyamira woman article was published only on Citizen Witness and picked up by only Opera News and social media users.
A Google image reverse search shows that the picture was first published on 7th February, 2020 by newzimbabwe.com, when a Hwange woman dièd after a heap of coal rubble reportedly collapsed on her while she illegally extracted some coke at a dumpsite.
Simelweyinkosi Dube, aged 31, had gone to a dump site in Hwange where residents illegally extract coke from coal waste for use as a source of energy.
VERDICT: The story of a woman seeking to be buried alive because of her children’s inability to get jobs is fake as there is no evidence of the incidént happening.
[This story was produced by Business Today in partnership with Code for Africa’s iLAB data journalism programme, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie ]
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