Old video of police crackdown on taxis in S.Africa linked to fabricated story about pregnant woman
While transport -related disorders persist in the western CAP province in South Africa, social media users share a video saying that the police have violently stopped taxi minibus drivers to harass a pregnant woman. But the complaint is false; The images were filmed in 2023 during the clashes in CAP concerning the pound of minibuses by the authorities.
“The taxi drivers stopped after the alleged harassment of pregnant women in the management of the school,” reads part of a long post X published on August 26, 2025.
“Eight taxi drivers were placed in police custody earlier during the day after trying to force a woman pregnant from her vehicle while she was collecting her children at school,” added the legend published with images by an account called “@PrimimeTimeNewsza”.
According to the post, “the woman and her children were unharmed”, but the police did not disclose the “place of the specific school to protect the intimacy of the victim”.
The position, with more than 5,000 likes and more than 1,100 republication, includes three screenshots showing an altercation involving police officers and minibus people commonly used for public transport in South Africa.
Post X Cluring screenshot, published on August 27, 2025
A day later, the same account responded to the position with a 60 -second video of the alleged scene, showing that the police use strength to apprehend people who look among rows of minibus blocking the road.
The message is subtitled: “Video incident involving taxi drivers and police.”
This, and the name of the account, implies that this is a recent report, a hypothesis reproduced in certain responses. However, other users have rejected the clip as an old video.
Screenshot of certain responses under the X Post, taken on September 1, 2025
Similar publications have been shared on Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok.
Although tensions in the minibus taxi industry have increased in recent months, this video has been online since August 2023.
Cape Town Blitz
An inverted image search for screenshots in post and clip in the comments led to older publications and articles on a police confrontation in CAP, South Africa.
AFP Fact Check found that the video was published on August 2, 2023 on X with legend: “Taxi drivers caused the violence in CAP earlier. In this video, they met their Saps and Metro match …(sic)(Archived here).
X -post screenshot published on August 2, 2023
The two videos represent the same dead end between taxi operators and the police.
Comparison of screenshots showing the same scene from X Post in August 2025 (left) and the post published two years ago
The day in question, the local media reported that violent clashes had broken out at the Cape Town after the law enforcement organizations seized taxis, which prompted some operators to lock themselves inside their minibus to protest (archived here).
AFP FACT Check Geoloqué the Cape Town junction where the blitz occurred by looking on Google Maps for Christiaan Barnard Street, the name that appears on a street panel in the video.
Screenshots of the circulating video (on the left) marked to show the similarities found on Google Maps
A comparison of satellite imaging and video shows the same buildings in the background.
According to reports, the opposition parties of the time condemned the city’s heavy response to protest drivers.
Screenshot of an article from 2023
The one -week strike resulted in the death of five people, including a police officer, and left thousands of shuttlers blocked after buses and private vehicles were burned (archived here).
The Western Cape province estimated the economic cost of the strike at around five billion rands (around $ 283 million) (archived here).
The online searches have not revealed any credible report of a pregnant woman saved by the police to protest against taxi drivers.
Contacted by AFP Facts Check, the spokesperson for the national police in South Africa, Athlende Mathe, said on September 1, 2025, they were “not aware of this incident”.
Taxi violence
At the end of August 2025, the South African media reported that taxi drivers and minibus commuters said that they feared for their lives, following a series of fatal shootings in the city linked to the quarrel of taxi associations which control the roads (archived here and here).
Recent violence has resulted in the death of five people, including four drivers, and injured several others.
The provincial government has called on taxi operators to urgently resolve the conflict after an increased dead end of tensions (archived here).
The verification of AFP facts has demystified another recent complaint concerning taxi violence in South Africa.
