We came across the following posts on the social media platform X (1,2):

The posts, which date from 11 May 2025, claim that Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) had issued a travel advisory for the Maldives.

A web search revealed that such reports had originated on the web before spreading further on social media. One report had appeared on an aviation-focused website called Aviators Maldives, while the earliest report was found on the travel-themed website Travel and Tour World on 10 May.

The report claimed that in addition to Maldives, Singapore had issued a travel warning for multiple countries in South Asia, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Myanmar and other regions.

Old News

Most of the reports and posts did not contain sources for their claims. However, one of the posts appeared to include a link to the Singapore MFA website.

When we visited the link, we found that it connected to a legitimate press statement on MFA’s online newsroom. The statement warned Singaporeans to ‘defer all non-essential travel to the Maldives for the time being’ and referred to ‘reports of unrest, demonstrations and an uncertain security situation in Male, the capital, and some of the outlying islands in the Maldives’.

However, a closer look revealed that the press statement had been released over a decade ago. While the date was not visible on the statement itself, the page URL, which contains information regarding the date that it was published, indicates that the statement had been released on February 2012.

When we directly visited the official MFA page for travel advisories and notices, the country page for Maldives, and the page for press statements, we found that none of the pages contained any recent travel advisories for Maldives.

Since the beginning of the year, there has been a travel notice for Nepal and travel advisories for Bangladesh, Pakistan and the territory of Jammu and Kashmir in India. However, there were no travel advisories for the other Asian countries cited by Travel and Tour World.

From the Maldives

An investigation of the official pages for news and statements for the Maldives Foreign Ministry turned up no results mentioning the supposed travel advisory by Singapore.

However, when we dug deeper into news reports in the Maldives media, we found some reports that quoted the Maldives Foreign Ministry as dismissing the earlier claim and clarifying that the Singapore government had not advised Singaporeans as such.

While this news was not carried in official channels, one of the reports quoting the Ministry was published on PSM News, a state-run media outlet, and is therefore likely to be reliable.

Wrong Timelines

While investigating this story, we found that Singapore had previously issued a travel advisory for the Maldives in 2018 during a political crisis. As the posts with the claims above show, news from previous events such as these can be manipulated or misinterpreted to become disinformation, making it essential to verify important details such as the date when these events occurred.

We also found a case where X’s AI chatbot Grok gave an inconclusive response when asked to clarify if the claim was factual, stating, ‘there’s evidence suggesting Singapore issued a travel advisory for the Maldives in early May 2025’. It also states, ‘however, the Singapore MFA’s official page doesn’t list the Maldives specifically as of May 11, 2025, creating some uncertainty’.

While some of the AI responses may be more accurate, its inconsistency indicates that such tools should not be exclusively relied on when ascertaining the veracity of claims.

The claims appear to have emerged in conjunction with the travel advisories issued for India and Pakistan upon the outbreak of the conflict between the two countries in early May.

Ultimately, however, there is no evidence that Singapore has issued a travel advisory for the Maldives and there is some reliable evidence that refutes this claim. As such, we find the claim that Singapore has recently issued a travel advisory for the Maldives to be false.