A YouTube video is premiered on July 23 having a thumbnail and title that reads “TPLF hijacked a plane”. Over two thousand viewers watched the video so far.
HaqCheck looked into the full content of the video and confirmed that the actual content doesn’t state that TPLF recently hijacked a plane. The video tells that TPLF denied the landing of a plane in Mekelle. Therefore, the video is rated MISLEADING.
The federal government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) have been in an armed conflict since November 2020.
The belligerents declared a humanitarian truce in March 2022. Since then the flow of humanitarian aid was improved.
There have been unconfirmed reports of direct talks between senior leaders of the Ethiopian federal government and TPLF.
Claims also emerged that the federal government of Ethiopia and the TPLF were preparing for potential negotiations.
Debretsion Gebremichael, TPLF chairman, wrote an open letter and confirmed that his administration will send a delegation to the peace talk initiative that will be held in Nairobi, Kenya.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, during a parliament session last week said that the federal government has already formed a committee to undertake the negotiation with the TPLF.
There have been controversies regarding the transportation of humanitarian aid and humanitarian access to the Tigray regional state between the TPLF and the federal government.
The Ethiopian government and TPLF have accused one another of blocking humanitarian access and hindering smooth transportation of aid to the region.
Last September the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) said that 407 of the 445 aid trucks that entered Tigray failed to return causing an impediment to scaling up humanitarian response.
On June 23, 2022, the Ethiopian government accused TPLF of blocking humanitarian aid flights to Mekelle Airport, Tigray.
TPLF, responding to the accusation, stated that the airport has ceased operation due to the absence of fuel to run the facility.
In this context, a video titled, “TPLF hijacked a plane” emerged. However, the video explains that TPLF blocked humanitarian aid flights to Mekelle. There is no connection between the thumbnail and title of the video and its actual content.Therefore, HaqCheck rendered the video MISLEADING due to the absence of relevance between the thumbnail/title and the content.
