No, Prince William Did Not Mention Africa and Asia in This Speech
The Claim
Prince William was quoted saying: “it's rather normal to see war and bloodshed in Africa and Asia but not Europe,” and “it's very alien to see this in Europe. We are all behind you," during a visit to the Ukrainian Cultural Centre in London.
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Emerging story
Social media users are circulating a claim of a quote attributed to Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge. Users claim that Prince William said: “it's rather normal to see war and bloodshed in Africa and Asia but not Europe,” and “it's very alien to see this in Europe. We are all behind you," during a visit to the Ukrainian Cultural Centre in London. Users who shared the claim were outraged, labeling the statement racist.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar investigated the claim and discovered that the short speech given by the Prince during his visit to the Ukrainian Cultural Centre in London was recorded. The short clip was uploaded on Twitter, where the transcript reads: “Everyone is horrified by what they are seeing. It's really horrifying. The news every day, it's just, it's almost unfathomable to actually witness it. For our generation, it's very alien to see this happen in Europe. We're all right behind you. We're thinking about you. We feel so useless."
Richard Palmer, the royal correspondent reporter who filed the original story, apologized for the ‘misheard' comments in a tweet.
Although Prince William was misquoted in the first part, he did say that war in Europe was “alien” to his generation. However, the Prince was born in 1982, which means he was ten years old at the start of the Bosnian War, which occurred from 1992 to 1995. His generation has also lived during the illegal annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014, and the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan from 1988 till 2020. Prince William's remarks come amid allegations claiming that Western media is racially biased in its coverage of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Based on these findings, Misbar’s team confirms that the Prince was misquoted and did not say that seeing war and bloodshed in Africa and Asia is normal.
