A video circulating on X (formerly Twitter) since 8 September 2026 claims to show Kenyans burning cars and homes belonging to foreign nationals in an attempt to force them to leave the country.
The video was posted by Sihle Mavuso (@ZANewsFlash) with the caption: “WATCH: Kenyans are burning cars and houses of foreign nationals in order to force them to leave.” It shows people filming open-air fires on a wooden structure and a vehicle, while someone speaks in Luganda. The post claims the footage was recorded in Horohoro, Kenya. At the time of review, the post had garnered approximately 744,000 views, 722 comments, and 4,000 likes.
Background
On September 2, 2026, President William Ruto, during a meeting with Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME) traders at State House, ordered a crackdown on foreigners operating small-scale businesses in Kenya, saying local traders and hawkers needed greater protection. The Kenyan law under the Refugee Act 2021 allows refugees to work and operate businesses, provided they obtain the required documentation.
On September 6, 2026, Hon. Lee Kinyajui, Cabinet Secretary for the Ministry of Investments, Trade and Industry, said in a statement that President Ruto’s directive was in response to concerns that some foreign nationals were exploiting visa provisions to work without the necessary permits. Kenya’s President set a Monday (7/9/2026) deadline for foreigners operating small-scale businesses to cease their activities. Following the announcement, long queues formed outside Burundi’s embassy in Nairobi, after the embassy said it would issue free emergency travel documents to Burundian citizens wishing to return home. State House Spokesperson Hussein Mohamed responded by clarifying that the directive was regulatory, not expulsionary, and announced a 90-day regularisation window while warning against xenophobia.
The developments also drew a warning from Burundi’s Foreign Minister Édouard Bizimana, who said continued hate speech targeting Burundians in Kenya could strain relations between the two countries. “Kenyans live peacefully in Burundi. But if this hate speech against Burundi continues, things will certainly change. Kenya’s government is responsible for the lives of Burundians living in Kenya,” Bizimana wrote on X, tagging Kenya’s Parliament. The video post appeared amid heightened regional sensitivities about migration and xenophobia, including separate incidents in South Africa involving anti-immigrant activism.
The claim misattributing this footage to Kenya directly exploits heightened public sensitivity surrounding a recent surge of major fire incidents. Following high-profile fires, including the widespread secondary school and dormitory fires, as well as a commercial garage fire on September 7, 2026, destroying over 50 vehicles off Ole Dume Road in Kilimani, Nairobi. Ruto’s trader crackdown created real anxiety among migrant communities, which bad actors exploit by pairing it with fear.
Sihle Mavuso is a South African journalist who operates the X (Twitter) account @ZANewsFlash, which he has maintained since December 2011 and currently has 141.6K followers. His profile on X identifies him simply as a “Journalist” and provides a contact email (newsflashsa@gmail.com). It also includes an advertising/WhatsApp number (078 385 7387), and links to a YouTube channel (@kzntonightpodcast) and a WhatsApp news channel, indicating a small multimedia news operation. @ZANewsFlash’s feed is heavily focused on South African current affairs, with particular emphasis on KwaZulu-Natal, and features a mix of breaking news, political developments, and human-interest stories. He occasionally posts on regional or international topics, and some of his video content is branded under the “KZN Tonight Podcast” label.
Verification
A Google reverse-image search traced the video to an X (formerly Twitter) account, @GabrielBuule, which posted the footage on September 6, 2026, two days before it was repurposed to support the false claims. The post was captioned: “Earlier today in Kitemu, someone who was burning rubbish ended up burning cars.”
Gabriel Buule is a Ugandan journalist and features/arts writer with Daily Monitor. On his X profile, he describes himself as an RFI-trained fact-checker. He uses his platform to comment on Ugandan politics, media ethics, and social justice issues.
Visual and audio verification demonstrates that the footage originated in Uganda rather than Kenya. The individual recording speaks Luganda, a Bantu language central to Uganda, audibly exclaiming “Banange, omuliro…” (“My people, the fire…”), which directly refutes claims tying the incident to Kenya.
Furthermore, the silver saloon car visible at timestamp 00:02–00:05 displays a standard Ugandan registration plate layout (yellow/amber rear plate with black alphanumeric characters, typical of the Uxx 000x Uganda series).
The physical environment in the posts, with the red-soil terrain, makeshift timber-and-iron structures, and roadside vegetation, is entirely consistent with recorded imagery from peri-urban workshops in Central Uganda, such as Kitemu along the Kampala–Masaka corridor. The location on the post-Horohoro is a key border town situated on the Tanzanian side, directly adjacent to Lunga Lunga on the Kenyan side of the East African coastal corridor.
Consequently, geolocation and linguistic markers establish that the clip depicts an incident in Uganda, not the unrelated fires in Kenya to which it was attributed. The case illustrates a common disinformation tactic: recontextualisation, where dramatic crisis footage from neighbouring countries is stripped of its original time and location and recirculated to reinforce a misleading narrative. In this instance, the fire footage was grafted onto claims about xenophobic attacks in Kenya, despite the absence of evidence linking the video to such incidents. No media house reported the matter, and they were all reporting from the Embassy of Burundi. Conversely, Kenyan online communities have publicly expressed solidarity with Burundians, sharing supportive hashtags, messages, and images.
Verdict
The video claiming Kenyans are burning cars and houses of foreign nationals is FALSE.
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