Astonishing, barely believable claims of a massive medical conspiracy, with the assistance of the Gauteng Government, were trotted out at a press briefing yesterday by Independent Media executive chair Dr Iqbal Survé as an explanation of why the infamous Tembisa 10 decuplets story run by his newspapers was in fact true, despite the babies never being found.

He alleged that state hospitals in Gauteng were at the epicentre of human and child trafficking – which was the reason Gosiame Sithole's decuplets were never discovered.

According to a TimesLIVE report, Survé said that an inquiry instituted by the media group had found that Sithole delivered the babies at the Zamokuhle Private Hospital in Tembisa but that the infants were later transferred to Tembisa Hospital.

However, Lenmed Group said Sithole had not given birth to decuplets at any of its facilities in June.

'In fact, the hospital group has no record of Ms Sithole giving birth at any of our facilities.'

Survé, however, maintained the births happened and charged that state hospitals were the epicentre of human trafficking and baby trafficking, and alleged that the Department of Home Affairs was involved.

'Our investigation uncovered horrific stories of baby trafficking and that babies are trafficked from Gauteng to Mpumalanga, West Africa and overseas,' he said.

He made the astonishing claim that 50% of the trafficked babies were used for muti, surgery and stem cells, while 50% were trafficked.

In response, the Gauteng Government has promised to take legal action against Independent Media.

Meanwhile, this morning's Independent Newspapers trumpeted the claims on their front pages: She WAS pregnant and DID give birth (The Argus); DECUPLETS: Doctor confirms recent C-section, multiple pregnancy (The Mercury); ‘Tembisa 10’ saga: revealing the truth (The Star); Sithole was pregnant and did give birth (Pretoria News).

Full TimesLIVE report

The You Tube press conference video

Why the sorry saga is fantasy not fact is explained by Rebecca Davis in an analysis on the Daily Maverick site.

Writes Davis: ‘In the 2½ hours of Survé’s onanistic tea party, during which he was flanked by two experts who had been paid to investigate the matter, the audience was presented with just one fact. Namely, that Dr Mpho Pooe had seen that Sithole had a Caesarean scar. That suggests that Gosiame Sithole gave birth at some point in the past. That is it, as far as empirical proof of the original story goes. Human rights lawyer, Advocate Michael Donen SC, who was the other external investigator on the matter, said that he personally felt sure Sithole had been pregnant because lots of people told him so, and also there were ‘pictures’ of her looking pregnant.'

Full Daily Maverick analysis