Etriean officials have stated that the satirical story about how Eritrean men have been ordered to marry at least two wives would not even have been believed by “a madman in [the Eritrean capital] Asmara.” Unfortunately for the same Etriean officials, a news media site known as Crazy Monday in Kenya, news channels in South Africa, the twitter feeds of Kenyans, another media site known as the Sahara Reporters, the twitter feeds of Nigerians, and several other sites, had all thought the fiction was true. At least the Saharan Reporters have printed a retraction but not before people all over twitter have shared visa applications for Etriean.
Unfortunately these Etriean officials are still trying to put out the fire which has been traced back to a falsified government document stating that the hoax was going to be the new official policy. It turns out that this story is a really old and vicious rumor which has been attributed to the governments of Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and now Etriean. The first recording of this rumor attributed to other countries started in 2011.
This has to be one of the fastest traveling hoaxes in history. The original fake document was uploaded in early January 2016 and has hit all over Africa and the rest of the world in all of a few weeks. We need to send news media people to journalism school if they have never been and again if they already had.