On 26 December 2020 a facebook user by the name ኣርሓ ወያናይ ተጋሩ (with 5,000 friends) posted the picture below of two men with the claim that they were killed by Eritrean soldiers in Tigray. The text which is written in Tigrinya reads “…. Ohhh offspring of beasts! Eritrean soldiers executed these two innocent men in Tigray…. Injustice never seen anywhere in the world!” However, Haqcheck interrogated the case and confirmed that the picture doesn’t show two men being executed by Eritrean soldiers in Tigray, rendering the verdict FALSE due to the usage of an inaccurate image to support the claim.
Granted, there has been an ongoing conflict in the Tigray region between the Federal government and the TPLF led Tigray special police force and militia since 4 November 2020. There have also been allegations and unproven reports claiming Eritrean soldiers have been involved in the military operation in Tigray supporting the federal government. Despite these claims however, the ethiopian government has repeatedly denied that Eritrean forces were involved in the military operation.
It is in this context that the post was shared by the user making strong allegations that the individuals in the picture were killed by Eritrean troops in Tigray amid the current conflict in the region. However a reverse image search of the picture used in the post shows that it was first published on 30 November 2017 by a twitter user called awaale afcad on Twitter with the caption “In Libya”. The picture was posted with three other images. The original post can be accessed with the following link.
Image 1: Doctored Image
Image 2: Original Image (awaale afcad)
Granted, there have been allegations and unproven reports that Eritrea was involved in the armed conflict between TPLF-led regional forces and federal government-led forces. However, HaqCheck has interogetted the claim and confirmed that the image below that shows two men doesn’t prove the claim that they were killed by Eritrean soldiers in Tigray, therefore, rendering the post as FALSE due to the usage of an inaccurate image to support the claim.
Fact Checked by: Hagos Gebreamlak
Edited by: Bruck Negash Teame
The following article is part of HaqCheck, Addis Zeybe’s multilingual fact checking running in five languages (Affan Oromo, Amharic, Somali, Tigrinya and English)
