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DISINFO DESK
Viral Misinformation
SA Mozambican Woman Arrest Photo: Old Image Recycled for Anti-Immigrant Narrative
A photo of a woman being removed by police went viral in late October 2025 captioned as a Mozambican woman's arrest in Johannesburg. It is a six-year-old photo from a different protest in a different city.
FILED OCT 1, 2026 · UPDATED OCT 1, 2026 · 3 SOURCES
The Viral Claim
In late October 2025, posts on Facebook, X and TikTok circulated a photo of a woman being restrained by police, captioned as showing a Mozambican woman arrested in Johannesburg after a dispute with SAPS officers over business-permit documents for a hair salon [1].
The claim was amplified by accounts that regularly spread misinformation and, notably, by an AI chatbot that repeated it as fact, giving it a veneer of credibility [1].
The Actual Origin
The photo was taken by Sunday Times photographer Esa Alexander on 30 October 2019, during a police operation to forcibly remove refugees and asylum seekers who had staged a sit-in at the Waldorf Arcade in St George's Mall, Cape Town, since 8 October 2019 [2][3].
Police acted on an eviction order granted on 18 October 2019 at the request of the building's landlord; officers used water cannons and stun grenades, and roughly 100 people were arrested in the operation [2].
Police in Johannesburg said they had no record of any such arrest matching the viral caption [1].
Why the Refugees Were Protesting
The Cape Town sit-in began as refugees and asylum seekers asked the UNHCR to help relocate them to countries such as Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia, citing fear of xenophobic violence in South Africa [3].
Participants, many with children, described experiences of xenophobic attacks, employment discrimination and extortion as their reasons for wanting resettlement [3].
Conclusion
The viral "Mozambican woman arrested in Johannesburg" photo is a six-year-old image from a 2019 Cape Town police operation against refugee protesters, not a 2025 Johannesburg immigration arrest. South African fact-checkers and police have both found no basis for the caption [1].
SOURCES · 3
- [1]Africa Check: No, viral photo doesn't show Mozambican woman arrested in Johannesburg
84/100 · africacheck.org
- [2]News24: Water cannons fired as police remove foreign nationals outside UN refugee offices in Cape Town
72/100 · news24.com
- [3]GroundUp: Refugee protest outside UNHCR keeps growing
72/100 · groundup.org.za
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