An Eritrea government official has vehement denies men have been ordered to marry at least two wives. “Even a madman in (the Eritrean capital) Asmara would know that this story was not true,” he told the BBC.
The hoax was first published online on a Kenyan news site, ‘Crazy Monday’. This has drawn numerous comments from men on Twitter who are ready to travel to Eritrea to find a new wife.
Crazy Monday, which is published by the Standard newspaper, is well known for its focus on scandalous stories and gossip as part of an attempt to attract a younger readership, says Mathias Muindi from the BBC’s media monitoring service.
But this has not stopped it being reported in many countries from Nigeria to South Africa, with some suggesting that it was true.
The story said that to make up for the shortage of men in the country, following the civil war with Ethiopia from 1998-2000, every man must marry at least two women or face imprisonment. It has been trending on Twitter in Nigeria, and other countries, for several days with people sharing links to the country’s visa application documents.
Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel tweeted that “the media frenzy to parrot this ludicrous, fabricated and trite story… is appalling”.
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