As it sounded incredible to many, authorities dig dipper and the real truth was revealed, which caused controversy and made many talking.
The news about the unique birth was initially shared by the news site Pretoria News in June 2021. They claimed that the 37-year-old mother delivered her babies at Steve Biko Academic Hospital in South Africa.
Allegedly, Sithole and her partner Teboho, from the working-class township in the Gauteng province, near Johannesburg, were initially told they were expecting eight babies and were left shocked after the birth of their decuplets. A number of world renowned magazines and outlets such as BBC shared this incredible story.
Pretoria News dubbed the babies as the ‘Tembisa 10’ and the story seemed legit as a number of details were involved. At the time, nothing spoke that the entire story could be made up.
What’s most, authorities claimed that Sithole wasn’t even pregnant in the first place.
“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 which arose was why someone would lie about the number of babies they had or that they were pregnant in the first place? Well, it looks like authorities don’t have the answer to this question, especially because the author of the article which first shared the story stood by what he wrote. For long, he insisted the story was truthful.
“Even though I stand by the fact that Sithole was pregnant, some aspects of the story could have been dealt with differently. Could I have handled the story much better? Definitely! Especially the verification process. Quite honestly, I never treated the decuplets story as an investigation at all. I used no investigative tool or checklist,” Piet wrote, according to News24.
He believed they had no reason to lie to him so he went on and published the incredible story.
It is still unclear why the mother lied about the pregnancy and the babies. In the meantime, the alleged mother has been offered help.
This story is still surrounded by mystery.