Old Video from South Africa Viral as ‘Monkeys in Indian Hospital’
The video was falsely shared by Pakistani reporter Murtaza Ali Shah as belonging to India.
A video showing monkeys playing around inside a hospital ward has gone viral on social media with the claim that the video is from India. But the video is of 2019 and from South Africa.
CLAIM
The viral video showing monkeys taking over a hospital was shared by Murtaza Ali Shah (@MurtazaViews), a UK-based Pakistani reporter for GEO News and The News International, stating that is from "somewhere in India."
It was also shared by several other twitter users, fearing it to be from COVID-19 wards.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
The video is actually from South Africa and not of COVID wards since it is from 2019.
A search keywords, “monkey” and “hospital” led us to several Twitter users from South Africa, who shared the video in April 2019.
A reverse image search with a screenshot from the video also led us to British newspaper Daily Mail's article from March 2019, titled, ‘Monkeys terrorise South African hospital for three months as they run riot through wards and kitchens to steal food while patients cower under their blankets.’
The article states that the monkeys entered the RK Khan Hospital in Durban, South Africa and took away the patients' food. It also had screenshots from the same video.
The facts were corroborated by a South Africa-based news-broadcaster eNCA's report on 8 February, 2019. Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, South Africa's Health Minister had launched an inquiry into the incident and demanded immediate solutions.
The viral video shared by Shah has been falsely attributed to India and clearly shows an incident from Durban, South Africa.
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