Warning: AfriForum SMS hoax

A message requesting SMS votes in support of AfriForum’s campaign against farm murders in South Africa, has been confirmed a hoax.

The message has been doing the rounds on social media platforms, particularly WhatsApp in the past few days.

AfriForum is a civil rights organisation that is linked to the Solidarity Trade Union. The organisation has in place a campaign in seeking support for international pressure on the government to act on farm murders.

The message reads that AfriForum has declared November in memory of those who have fallen victim to farm attacks and the organisation needs 96 000 votes to reach its target of 100 000, in order to submit a report to the United Nations.

People are requested to vote via SMS which would cost them R1.50.

However, AfriForum has confirmed that the message sent out by an unknown person, is in fact, a hoax but that the SMS line did belong to AfriForum.

“The message is based on an SMS that AfriForum sent out in 2015 when we did hand over a report on farm murders to the UN. As such, the SMS number that is mentioned in the WhatsApp message is actually one of our SMS numbers and the reply did come from our system. ”

The votes sent to the SMS line will be registered in the organisation’s system and will be used for future campaigns.

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