In June 2021, news site Pretoria News banged their biggest drum to announce that a woman named Gosiame Thamara Sithole, 37, had given birth to 10 babies at Steve Biko Academic Hospital in South Africa.
According to journalist Piet Rampedi, who wrote the first article about Gosiame, the decuplets were delivered on June 7.
By giving birth to 10 babies, Gosiame Thamara Sithole broke the Guinness World Record, according to Pretoria News. Ms. Sithole and her partner Teboho, from a working-class township in the Gauteng province, near Johannesburg, were shocked when they welcomed decuplets after scans showed that she was pregnant with ‘only’ eight babies.
Unsurprisingly, the story made international headlines, and was covered by well-known news outlets across the world like the BBC. Many people were amazed by the incredible story – it’s not every day you read about decuplets, after all!
It was easy to get carried away while reading about Gosiame’s babies, also known as the ‘Tembisa 10’. The original piece from Pretoria News, a newspaper established in 1898, was full of details. Everything seemed legit. According to the paper, Gosiame delivered seven boys and three girls by Caesarean section. It also stated that her pregnancy was natural and not the result of fertility treatment.
“I am shocked by my pregnancy. It was tough at the beginning. I was sick. It was hard for me. It’s still tough but I am used to it now. I don’t feel the pain anymore, but it’s still a bit tough. I just pray for God to help me deliver all my children in a healthy condition, and for me and my children to come out alive. I would be pleased about it,” Sithole told Pretoria News in June 2021.
If it sounds like an unbelievable story come true, it’s because it was. Kind of. It’s no wonder it went viral, receiving plenty of attention and publicity worldwide. Donations poured in to help the couple – all told, they amounted to $70,000, according to BBC.
There was just one problem – the unbelievable story was just that: unbelievable. And not true.
According to officials, the decuplets never existed.
When news of the ‘Tembisa 10’ broke, the provincial government of Gauteng started an investigation after people became grew suspicious that Pretoria News initially didn’t name the hospital where the babies were supposed to have been born.
On June 25, the Gauteng Provincial Government released a statement and insisted that they had done ”a thorough check with all hospitals in the province to establish the veracity or otherwise of reports.”
They found that “none of the hospitals in the province, public and private, had any records of such births at their facilities”. Moreover, the authorities’ investigation contained several compromising details.
For example, the 37-year-old South African woman had not even been pregnant. Social workers tracked her down and brought her to the hospital, where tests showed that Sithole hadn’t been pregnant recently.
“It has now been established by medical practitioners that Ms. Sithole did not give birth to any babies in recent times,” the Gauteng Provincial Government said.
“It has also been established that she was not pregnant in recent times.”
The question many asked was why? Why fabricate a story like this? Who benefits from it?
The authorities didn’t get into the reasons behind it, but said that the 37-year-old woman was given medical, psychological, and social support to provide any counseling she might require.
The story could have ended there. Instead, it all took another, startling turn.
The journalist who broke the news about the sensational birth wrote a follow-up piece after the authorities announced the findings of their investigation. He went on a rampage, accusing the Gauteng Health authorities of “a cover-up of mammoth proportions.”
“Instead of being a cause for celebration however, it has resulted in an orchestrated campaign to discredit the story, the mother of the decuplets Ms Sithole, the Pretoria News’ editor, Piet Rampedi, as well as Independent Media and its chairperson, Dr Iqbal Survé, with claims that the story is ‘fake news’. It is not and we stand by our story,” Independent Media said.
After reading that, the authorities launched a counterattack against the newspaper, stating that they considered pursuing legal action against the journalist and The Independent Group, owner of Pretoria News.
”These allegations are false, unsubstantiated and only serve to tarnish the good reputation of Steve Biko Academic Hospital and the Gauteng Provincial Government,” the statement said..