Claim: South Africans have been banned from entering Europe
Source: TikTok, YouTube
Verdict: False
Researched by Gifty Danso
South Africa’s recurring xenophobic incidents have once again drawn international attention, raising concerns about the country’s global reputation. The government has acknowledged that attacks targeting foreign nationals risk damaging South Africa’s image abroad, even as they continue to fuel debate over migration, public safety, and social cohesion.
On TikTok however, false and misleading claims appear to have amplified those concerns, with one viral post alleging that South Africans (including President Cyril Ramaphosa) have been banned from entering Europe.
The post (archived here) was shared by an account, “eliasjoy100” on July 20, 2026 with a caption: “Europe has banned South African citizens, including President Cyril Ramaphosa, from entering European countries following the recent xenophobic attacks on Black African immigrants. Go bek to your country we are fixing Europe.”
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The post itself appears to be a flyer showing images of Ramaphosa, Nhlanhla “Lux” Mohlauli, founder of the anti-immigration group Operation Dudula, and a video insert of Ramaphosa speaking about a travel ban from Europe.
At the time of fact-checking the claim, the post had garnered 1,236 shares, 14.6K likes, 1087 comments, and saved 1556 times.
This report will verify two issues:
- The origin of the Ramaphosa video as it appears to feed into the Europe ban narrative
- Whether Europe has issued a travel ban on South Africa due to recent xenophobic violence.
Fact-check
GhanaFact first reviewed the video insert of Ramaphosa talking about the travel ban. This is because it appears to give legitimacy to the text of the claim that there is diplomatic strain in South Africa’s relationship with Europe.
Did Ramaphosa speak about a travel ban from Europe?
Yes, the South African president said he got a call about a travel ban from Europe to South Africa. But the context is unrelated to xenophobic violence.
We found that the video is not recent. GhanaFact traced it to the Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security in Africa in December 2021, where Ramaphosa revealed that he was at the receiving end of “patronising” and “disrespectful” phone calls from European officials alerting him of a travel ban after South Africa reported the discovery of the Omicron COVID-19 variant. (See here, here, and here).
GhanaFact observed that the portions of Ramaphosa’s address where he specifically mentions “omicron” and “southern Africa” were edited out of the video insert used in the circulating claim.
“I also got some calls from Europe and the calls were so paternalistic. They were saying, ‘ello president Ramaphosa, (we’ve heard about the Omicron – deleted portion) I am sorry to tell you that we are banning travel from Europe to South Africa’ (and southern Africa – deleted portion). No discussion, no attempt to hear what our views are and I’m saying that the relationship needs to be mutually beneficial. We need to respect one another.
“The African presidents respected me as we respected one another. And from Europe I just got a message saying we’ve banned travel, thank you, goodbye, see you next time. That’s not a way to conduct relationships. There needs to be consensus. There needs to be discussions,” Ramaphosa said. (Watch from 1:49 to 2:44 time stamp of this video from the 2021 event.)
Has Europe recently waded into the issues of xenophobic violence?
We conducted a keyword search to find recent comments from the European Union or its representatives in South Africa about the issue of xenophobic violence. But we did not find any such statements. Instead, we found the claim shared across other platforms including Facebook, YouTube and Instagram (here, here and here).
Verdict:
The claim that South Africans have been banned from entering Europe is false. The video of President Cyril Ramaphosa speaking about a travel ban is unrelated to the xenophobic violence.
