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July 31 (UPI) — The U.S. State Department has apologized for using an incorrectly labeled map of Africa during a presentation at the global AIDS conference in Brazil.
The presentation that took place on Sunday had a map that included six incorrectly identified countries and misshapen borders.
The map detailed about $500 billion in potential U.S. funding to Africa.
The State Department said in a statement that it takes “full responsibility for the confusion and misrepresentation it caused for attendees, including our African partners.”
The map included an AI watermark.
Nigeria, Mozambique and Ivory Coast are placed in the completely incorrect locations on the map. Malawi and Uganda are in the generally correct region but the borders are unrecognizable. Cameroon is named on the map but it does not have a line marking its location like the other countries and is in the wrong location..
Mozambique was marked in the eastern horn of Africa, rather than its correct position in the southern part of the continent.
Ivory Coast, or Côte d’Ivoire, a coastal nation as its name suggests, was landlocked in eastern Africa rather than its rightful place on the opposite side of the continent.
Cameroon was roughly where Ivory Coast belonged and just over half of its actual size.
Nigeria was in another incorrectly landlocked location, just north of its accurate placement on the western coast bordering Cameroon.
Uganda was the closest to its correct position, needing to be moved a few hundred miles to the west, but the border was completely wrong.
Malawi’s borders were also drawn incorrectly and it was too far to the south.
“What an embarrassment,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., wrote on social media. “This is what happens when [the State Department] fires career experts and tries to have AI conduct diplomacy.”