Image of man lying outside South African hospital fuels anti-migrant narratives

Anti-migrant groups have been preventing foreign nationals in South Africa from accessing public health facilities, claiming they are overburdening state resources. As these groups face criticism for acts of vigilantism, social media users are sharing an image, claiming it shows a Zimbabwean who died after being dragged out of a hospital. However, this is false; the photograph first surfaced in January 2025 and was unrelated to ongoing disputes between locals and foreigners. Furthermore, the province’s health department identified the man in the photo as South African, not Zimbabwean.

“A Zimbabwean man dies after he was dragged out of hospital by South African Dudula gangsters, here in the photo his wife stands confused and shocked all because of bad governance in Zimbabwe (sic),” reads an X post published on August 2, 2025.

Operation Dudula is a movement that promotes the deportation of undocumented migrants (archived here).

The X post, with over 2,000 likes, features a photo of a man lying on the ground outside a metal gate, with a young woman standing above him.

Comments to the X post were mixed, with some replies asking why the man hadn’t gone to a private hospital and others criticising the poster for using an old photo to spread propaganda.

Similar claims have circulated on Facebook and YouTube.

However, the image shows an incident earlier in the year, unrelated to the ongoing disputes about foreigners in South Africa.

January reports

A reverse image search of the photo led to Afrikaans online articles from January 2025 by regional radio station OFM and the paywalled newspaper Netwerk24 (archived here).

According to the news reports and the original Facebook post describing the incident, the photo was taken when the post’s author, Vuyo Majuba, “came across a deeply disturbing scene” at MUCPP Mangaung Community Health Centre in Bloemfontein, Free State province (archived here).

“An elderly, sick man was lying outside the clinic gates with his children by his side, visibly helpless,” read the post published on January 2, 2025.

The post added that the gates were locked, and security told him the clinic only assists “women giving birth”.

At the time, the Free State Department of Health responded to the backlash from concerned citizens (archived here).

“Last night, Thursday, 02 January 2025, it transpired that a patient was taken to MUCPP after 21:00 and their pictures were spread on social media when they could not get help because the clinic is closed at that time for casualty services,” said the provincial government.

The health department added: “The ambulance services were contacted to check the situation but did not find this person because they had been taken to Pelonomi Hospital”.

The provincial health spokesperson told AFP Fact Check on August 6, 2025, that they are aware that the “picture has suddenly resurfaced as an apparent new issue”.

“We can confirm that this is used for misinformation purposes,” Mondli Mvambi wrote in a WhatsApp message.

Mvambi also confirmed that the man was reportedly South African, not Zimbabwean.

“We checked MUCPP that night to see what had transpired after our EMS had been sent to MUCPP, only to be told that this South African patient had been taken by car to Pelonomi,” he said.

The health department could not locate the patient after that night: “We checked Pelonomi and there was never any confirmation of a patient with such a description.”

Healthcare dispute

In recent years, groups including Operation Dudula as well as March and March have been blocking undocumented foreigners from accessing public healthcare in South Africa’s Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces (archived here and here).

The groups advocate for the deportation of undocumented foreigners from South Africa, claiming they are straining the country’s resources.

The South African Human Rights Commission condemned these actions as unconstitutional (archived here), and the Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI) launched a case in the Gauteng High Court in 2024. The case was heard in June, but the court reserved judgment, meaning that a written decision will be handed down at a later date (archived here).