The picture in the facebook post by Oromia Press (a page with 69,900 followers) used to support the claim that many citizens in the Tigray region were protesting against the Ethiopian National DefenceForce and the Federal forces do not show Tigrians protesting. Haqcheck has interrogated the post to find out that the picture was not representative of the situation in Tigray.
The page posted a photo that shows people closing roads and burning a nearby building on December 3, 2020 claiming that people of the region came out to protest against the Federal army that took over the region following the conflict between National Defense Force and Regional Special force and militia.
Granted, due to the communications gap in the Tigray region since the onset of the conflict on 4 November 2020, a lot is not known about the situation in the region apart from information coming out of state owned mass media outlets, different regional media outlets and some international news platforms. The ENDF led federal forces supported by the Amhara special police and militia have announced that the capitol has fallen to the Federal forces on 29 November 2020. The TPLF leadership have told different outlets that the fighting is continuing in places near the capitol. The government has repeatedly said that the Tigray people are supportive of its operation in the region while the TPLF has repeatedly stated that lootings are happening in the region by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces.
A reverse image search of the image used by Oromia Press shows that the image first appeared on the news outlet Africa Feeds (www.africfeeds.com) on 26 October 2019 which makes the claim false. Therefore, Haqcheck has concluded that the above image does not show the situation in the Tigray region or support the claim by the facebook page that there are protests in the Tigray region on 2 December 2020 giving it the verdict FALSE.
Fact checked: Abdulahi Abdulakdir
Edited : Bruk Negash
The following article is part of HaqCheck, Addis Zeybe’s multilingual fact checking running in five languages (Affan 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.
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