The Chinese ambassador to Zambia, Yang Youming, last month had to vehemently deny reports that China was stocking Zambian supermarkets with cans of human meat.
He said that a local tabloid newspaper was openly spreading a rumour claiming that the Chinese used human meat to make corned beef and sell it to Africa. “This is completely a malicious slandering and vilification which is absolutely unacceptable to us,” he added.
This followed rampant rumours circulating around on Zambian social media and even the report in one local newspaper.
The newspaper quoted a Zambian woman living in China telling her friends to avoid buying Chinese corned beef, because it is actually people! She claimed that Chinese beef companies were collecting corpses, marinating them, packing them inside tin cans labelled as corned beef and then shipping them off to southern Africa.
