With hundreds of thousands of foreigners fleeing deadly anti-migrant unrest in South Africa, social media users are circulating a video purportedly showing President Cyril Ramaphosa urging unnamed countries to lift punitive travel bans. But this is false; the video is from a 2021 speech Ramaphosa made about Covid-19 restrictions. Claims that certain countries imposed travel bans on South Africans over the recent unrest are also false.
"Forgive us, don't ban us" and "South Africa begs for a ban lift resulting from xenophobic claims," reads the text overlaid on a TikTok video published on July 19, 2026.
Shared more than 3,000 times, the 28-second video has been shows Ramaphosa speaking into the camera.
"We call upon these countries that have imposed travel bans on our country to immediately and urgently reverse their decisions and lift the bans they have imposed before any further damage is done on our economy and to the livelihoods of our people," he says. "There is no scientific justification whatsoever for keeping these restrictions in place."
The same video was shared on X, Instagram and Facebook with similar claims.
More than 176,000 foreign nationals left South Africa in recent weeks, according to an AFP tally based on figures from the repatriating governments (archived here).
The country saw weeks of nationwide protests, many degenerating into violence, claiming the lives of at least four immigrants -- a toll some foreign governments believe is higher.
Xenophobic groups demanded that undocumented migrants leave by June 30, prompting citizens of other African countries to flock to consulates and community halls seeking ways to get home, many fearing for their lives and carrying only what they could.
Their exodus has left employers short-handed across industries including manufacturing, agriculture and mining (archived here).
But the video of Ramaphosa is unrelated to these issues and was filmed during the Covid-19 pandemic.
A reverse image search using keyframes from the video led to the original speech broadcast on YouTube on November 28, 2021, by South Africa's Eyewitness News (archived here).
"FULL SPEECH: President Ramaphosa addresses the nation on SA's response to COVID-19," reads the video's title.
At the time, several countries, including the United Kingdom and the European Union, had imposed travel bans on South Africa after the discovery of the Omicron coronavirus variant (archived here).
AFP Fact Check matched the TikTok clip to the original footage and found that it had been cropped before being falsely shared in the context of South Africa's xenophobic marches.
Furthermore, the TikTok clip omits key context showing that Ramaphosa was referring to Covid-19 travel restrictions (archived here).
At 25'13" in the original address, Ramaphosa says: "The prohibition of travel is not informed by science, nor will it be effective in preventing the spread of this variant. The only thing the prohibition on travel will do is to further damage the economies of the affected countries and undermine their ability to respond to and also to recover from the pandemic."
This context is missing in the false TikTok video.
He continues to say: "We call upon these countries that have imposed travel bans on our country and our Southern African sister countries to immediately and urgently reverse their decisions and lift the bans they have imposed before any further damage is done on our economy and to the livelihoods of our people."
This is the section of the speech heard in the clip circulating in 2026. However, the phrase "and our Southern African sister countries" has been removed, to create the false impression that Ramaphosa is referring to travel restrictions linked to the recent anti-migrant unrest.
In fact, no punitive travel restrictions have actually been imposed on travellers from South Africa in response to the xenophobic violence.
"There aren't any travel bans," Aldrin Sampear, South Africa's tourism spokesman, told AFP Fact Check on July 30.
The South African government has, however, not escaped criticism.
Ghana has been one of the most vocal critics, issuing a travel advisory and facilitating repatriations. Two Ghanaians have also petitioned the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate a "pattern of widespread and systematic attacks" on migrants (archived here and here).
Ghanaian President John Mahama also urged the African Union (AU) to table the matter, but on July 30, South Africa instead requested a continent-wide conference to discuss migration (archived here).
On July 27, Ramaphosa called on African countries "to work together to address issues like conflict, instability, governance failures, poverty and social discord" (archived here).
The attacks were "sad and abhorrent", he said, adding that "we in South Africa deeply regret and mourn" the lives lost.
AFP Fact Check has previously debunked numerous claims related to migration across the globe.