The picture in the post by the facebook profile Felmi Bar – which has 5,000 friends as of 7 December 2020 – does not show the Ethiopian National Defence Force’s operation in Tigray neither does it support the claim in the post written in Affaan Oromo and posted on the above profile on 7 December 2020. The post claims that the Federal government is looting and destroying infrustructures in the Tigray region before proposing that the government should be held accountable for this. HaqCheck has interrogated the pictures in the post to reach the conclusion that the first image was a FALSE image while the second one couldn’t be located anywhere.
As can be seen from the image above, the page posted two pictures to support the above claim. The first one shows shots from heavy artillery tanks while the second picture depicts an individual wearing a military uniform trying to shoot a heavy artillery weapon. The user uses these pictures to support his claim that the Ethiopian National Defense force is destroying infrastructure using huge heavy artillery in the Tigray national regional state without specifically mentioning the exact place in the Region.
Granted, there is an ongoing conflict in the Tigray National Regional State between the ENDF and it’s the Amhara Special Police and Militia on one side and the Tigray Special Police and Militia on the other. There have also been scattered claims that the ENDF side was looting and destroying infrastructure in the Tigray region, including from the Communications head of the TPLF Getachew Reda. However, amid the continuing network and internet blackout, there are no confirmed incidents of such looting in the region, including in the capital of the region, Mekelle.
Image 1: Original Image
Image 2: Altered image
A reverse image search of the image used by the page Felmi Bar so as to support the claim that says the national defense forces were destroying infrastructure in Tigray region using heavy artillery doesn’t accurately show the reality. To the contrary the image was first posted by Indian Ocean Newsletter on May 7,2011 showing the conflict between Ethiopia and its northern neighbour Eritrea during the Ethio-Eritrea war. No result appears for the first image in any of HaqCheck’s tools.
It is true that there has been conflict in the region in which both warring parties have used heavy artilleries but HaqCheck has confirmed that the first photo used by the page in order to support the claim in the post, leading it to rate the above post as FALSE.
Fact Checked by: Abdulahi Abdulakadir
Edited by: Bruck Negash
The following article is part of HaqCheck, Addis Zeybe’s multilingual fact checking running in five languages (Afaan Oromo, Amharic, Somali, Tigrinya and English)
Editor’s Note:
The following article was published as part of Addis Zeybe’s multilingual fact checking initiative. As the reconstruction of our website continues, Addis Zeybe would like its readers to note that it will be publishing fact checking articles on a permanent basis in five languages (Afaan Oromo, Amharic, Somali, Tigrinya and English. Addis Zeye will also be publishing monthly pandemic impact assessment and human rights reports in the coming months.
