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‘Misleading’: India on posts claiming world leaders fell ill after BRICS summit
The online speculation came after the South African government said President Cyril Ramaphosa was unwell, but did not provide details.
The Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday said that speculation on social media that world leaders had fallen ill after attending the BRICS summit in Delhi was “misleading”.
Sharing screenshots by accounts claiming that “multiple” or “numerous” leaders had become unwell after they attended the summit, the ministry described the claims as “fake” and misleading. “We caution against such malicious posts on social media platforms,” it said.
The summit was held on Saturday and Sunday.
Some of the posts on Thursday that made the claims had been viewed more than 7.7 million times on social media platform X as of 3 pm on Thursday.
The posts came after the South African government on Wednesday said that President Cyril Ramaphosa will not be participating in public events because of “ill health”.
Ramaphosa’s office said that he had returned from the BRICS summit in Delhi on Monday and “has been advised by his medical team to rest and recover”.
However, the South African government did not state the nature of the illness and whether it was believed to be linked to Ramaphosa having attended the summit.
Some of the posts and reports also cited speculation that Chinese President Xi Jinping had fallen ill during the summit. The claims were based on Xi skipping the leader’s dinner on Saturday and Prime Minister Narendra Modi pausing mid-speech during a session on Sunday to ask the Chinese president “is it okay?”
However, videos posted on Thursday purportedly showed Modi asking the question as Xi’s staff helped him with his audio translation device.
No other leader who attended the summit is reported to have fallen ill.
Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.