Fact Checks

Several months after the breakout of the Covid-19 pandemic, vaccines arrived and were distributed for public use. The coming of these vaccines was a great deal of relief to global health.

The pandemic has claimed the lives of millions of people and ruined the world economy. The whole world has been in a rarely occurred lockdown. So far the plague has killed more than five million people worldwide while over 256 million people have contracted the virus

The virus was reported in Ethiopia on Mar 13, 2020, for the first time. Since then, the pandemic has turned the socio-economic and health systems upside down.

So far, more than 369,867 coronavirus cases and 6,662 deaths have been registered in the country.

Almost all countries on the face of the earth have been fiercely hit by waves of rapid transmission of the virus. Recent reports indicate that many countries are currently being victimized by the fourth wave of the pandemic. There are states that imposed new restrictive measures and even lockdowns fearing a new wave of transmission. The virus still poses a serious danger to the global healthcare system.

The first-ever Covid-19 vaccine rollout by Pfizer was approved in the UK on Dec 2, 2020, less than a year after the outbreak was officially reported in Wuhan, China, and was good news to the world. Since then various Covid-19 vaccines have been authorized by regulatory agencies to be rolled out for use. Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Sinopharm, Sputnik are among the widely known and utilized vaccines.

Many donors are providing the country with Covid-19 vaccines. The vaccination program was launched on March 23, 2021. At first, there were limited amounts of vaccine doses. Frontline health workers, the elderly, and vulnerable people were given priority to be injected. But now, the government has announced that any person above the age of 18 can get vaccinated for free at public health centers.

However, there has been hesitancy within different sections of society to get vaccinated. These hesitancies are based on various reasons such as lack of sufficient knowledge about the vaccines or unidentified skeptical tendencies.

Many governmental and intergovernmental and research institutions have confirmed the safety of the Covid-19 vaccines. The vaccines are passed through clinical trials and given green lights by such credible organizations to be rolled out for public use.

The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) has confirmed that currently approved or authorized COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective and reduce the risk of severe illness.

Even vaccines are being developed and authorized to be given to children and teens, according to CDC.

The American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has for example authorized the usage of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccines. The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommends that people who had a severe allergic reaction after a previous dose or already diagnosed allergy to the vaccines not get vaccinated. It also urges that people should get the second shot within three to four weeks intervals after the first shot.

The vaccines should be given within a two- to 12-week interval depending on the type of the vaccine.

All the ingredients in the vaccines are safe and found in many foods such as fats, sugar, and salts. The vaccines help the body produce an immune response.

A backdrop to the vaccine hesitancy and unfounded allegations that it may have microchips,  Covid-19 vaccines don’t contain any manufactured products like microelectronics, electrodes, carbon nanotubes, or other nanostructures, or nanowire semiconductors, CDC confirmed.

The CDC has stated that the vaccines may have some side effects such as pain, redness, and swelling in the arm,  tiredness, headache, muscle pain, chills, fever, and nausea throughout the rest of the body.

However, these side effects that occur within a day or two of getting the vaccine are normal signs and go away within a few days.

Ethiopia has so far administered over five million doses and 3.8 people have got vaccinated. However, this number is very small when it comes to the total population of the country. More is left to be done regarding vaccination programs.

Currently, there are 20 Covid-19 vaccines that are approved by at least one national regulatory agency for public use. The World Health Organization has also recognized the authorization of these vaccines. The arrival of Covid-19 vaccines has a great deal role in reducing the spread, severity, and death caused by the virus.

According to a recent report by the US CDC, unvaccinated people are five times more likely to be infected, ten times more likely to be hospitalized, and 11 times more likely to die.

HaqCheck has learned that many credible governmental and intergovernmental organizations and agencies have confirmed that the vaccines that are authorized are safe and effective. HaqCheck encourages the public not to give attention to unfounded allegations that promote vaccine hesitancy and we promote people to get vaccinated as soon as possible. Finally, we also encourage people to apply personal preventive measures along with the vaccination.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————

HaqCheck is a local multilingual fact-checking project based in Ethiopia, formed inside Addis Zeybe’s newsroom, now Inform Africa’s Counter Disinformation Project – a board-led Civil Society Organization (CSO) – dedicated to verifying media contents from social to the mainstream. HaqCheck works in collaboration with media outlets to monitor media contents in English and four local languages (Amharic, Afaan Oromo, Tigrigna, and Somali).

This report is produced with the support of UNESCO under the #CoronavirusFacts: Addressing the ‘Disinfodemic’ on COVID-19 in conflict-prone Environments that the UNESCO Addis Ababa Office is implementing in Ethiopia with financial support from the European Union (EU). The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO or the EU concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city, or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The ideas and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNESCO or The European Union and do not commit these organizations in any way.

Covid-19 Vaccine contains bacteria

Among the dis-informative issues, last week was a kind of claim that is rare in the Ethiopian social media landscape. It’s about Covid-19 vaccines. A Facebook post appeared last week and claimed that Covid-19 vaccines contain bacteria. It also recommends people not get vaccinated. 

The post was viral and promotes vaccine hesitancy. Such posts and unfounded allegations are a threat to the healthcare system and well-being of society in general.

HaqCheck, however, looked into the case and confirmed that the claim is FALSE. The photos in the Facebook posts are not images taken from vaccine samples. They are taken from an article on the Tuberculosis Foundation Website, entitled “What is Tuberculosis?”

Additionally, the safety of the Covid-19 vaccines has also been confirmed by repetitive clinical trials and by various governmental and intergovernmental research institutions.

Ammunition seized in Addis Ababa

Another claim that emerged last week was a report that a bulk of ammunition was seized in Addis Ababa during a raid. The Facebook post emerged on Nov 16, 2021, sharing two images to support the claim as if the ammunition shown in the pictures was recently seized in Addis Ababa. The post has received close to five thousand reactions, over five hundred shares, and more than five hundred comments at the time of this publication.

However, HaqCheck fact-checked the claim and confirmed that the images in the post do not show a bulk of ammunition recently seized in Addis Ababa during a raid. The images were taken from a previous publication eight months ago. The first image in the post was taken from an article by Fana Broadcasting Corporation Afaan Oromoo page that reported ammunition was seized by the Kombolcha branch of the Ethiopian Customs Commission issued on Apr 15, 2021. The original image can be accessed here.

The second image posted to support the claim was first published in a Facebook post on Apr 16, 2021, with a text explaining that two individuals with over 5,000 ammunition were apprehended in Kombolcha. The original Facebook post can be found here. The post is confirmed FALSE by HaqCheck due to its use of inaccurate images to prove the claim.

Ammunition found inside the headquarters of the Orthodox Church synod

Last week Addis Ababa Police Commission announced that it seized a bulk of ammunition in a storehouse inside the premises of the headquarters of the Orthodox Church synod in Arat Kilo.

The police Commission released three images that show a bulk of ammunition.

Later on, counter-claims appeared arguing that the images were false and are taken from previous posts in Somalia or other parts of the world. Most of the counter-claims came from two groups of social media users; the first group seemed defenders of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and took the claim by the police as pure defamation against the church. The second group of counter-claims seemed politically motivated and took the claim as a pretext and extension of the ‘ongoing mass arrests against Tigrayans and other dissidents’ to the church.

The counterclaims posted photoshopped images to disprove the originality of the images that were posted by the city’s police and claimed that they were taken from Somalia. The counterclaim posts were later deleted. However the counterclaim images were found to be false and manipulated.

A day later, the police commission released a short video clip to prove the originality of the images. The controversy subsided later on after the police published the video clip.

Drone strikes in Wollo

A viral claim by Tigray Television was also fact-checked by HaqCheck last week. The regional TV outlet posted video footage and claimed that the Ethiopian government conducted aerial drone strikes in Wollo.

The YouTube video had more than 73 thousand views, with more than 1600 reactions. However, HaqCheck analyzed one of the video footage used in the news report and rendered it False.

The video released by Tigray Television used footage featured in a report by Oromia Media Network (OMN) in support of the news that the Federal Government used drones in its bombing in Wollo.

HaqCheck interrogated the video using a screenshot from the footage and found out that the video was released on Nov 6, 2021, on the official AFP News Agency YouTube channel showing a massive explosion of a petroleum station in Freetown, Sierra Leone. During the incident at least 92 people were dead. According to witnesses, the accident happened when a vehicle in a car accident caught fire. The flames then spread, burning people in cars and on roads nearby. 

Vigilantes looking for Tigrayans

Last week Aljazeera published a video clip on Facebook with a title that reads, “Thousands of Tigrayans arrested in Ethiopia”. The text along with the video clip explains that thousands of Tigrayans were being detained in Ethiopia as part of a government crackdown on suspected supporters of the rebel forces. It also showed a video of local vigilantes in an unidentified place somewhere in Addis Ababa and stated that they were looking for Tigrayans.

As the conflict has escalated, the Ethiopian government declared a six-month state of emergency. It also called for the residents of Addis Ababa to protect their neighborhoods. 

As per the call from the government, it’s now becoming common seeing local vigilantes guarding their neighborhoods and nearby streets. The intended objective of the call and the vigilantes ask passersby to show their identity cards to identify infiltrators.

The video clip and embedded message were controversial and seen by tens of thousands of viewers on Facebook.

Twitter launches new labels for fake news

In a bid to help Twitter users identify fake news and misinformation, Twitter has redesigned and launched new warning labels last week. The new labels will be embedded in false and misleading tweets.

The new labels will be used for manipulated media contents that cause real-world harm, election and voting-related misinformation, and false or misleading tweets related to Covid-19.

Labeled tweets will be less likely to be liked and retweeted, will not even be possible to be liked, replied to, and retweeted.

Recommendations

HaqCheck urges social media users to be mindful of the contents across the platforms and be cautious of possible false or misleading information. They have to avoid simply receiving information as reported or narrated.

We recommend that the government should provide the public with up-to-date and sufficient information regarding the ongoing issues. It should also permit open and unfettered access to information to media outlets and journalists. Information disorder flourishes in darkness in which there is no or limited information to the public and the media.

HaqCheck urges social media influencers to be more responsible and refrain from spreading dis-informative and hateful content. International media outlets should also consider the fragile situation the country is currently in. They should avoid exaggerated and toxic content in their reports regarding the country.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————

HaqCheck is a local multilingual fact-checking project based in Ethiopia, formed inside Addis Zeybe’s newsroom, now Inform Africa’s Counter Disinformation Project – a board-led Civil Society Organization (CSO) – dedicated to verifying media contents from social to the mainstream. HaqCheck works in collaboration with media outlets to monitor media contents in English and four local languages (Amharic, Afaan Oromo, Tigrigna, and Somali).

This report is produced with the support of UNESCO under the #CoronavirusFacts: Addressing the ‘Disinfodemic’ on COVID-19 in conflict-prone Environments that the UNESCO Addis Ababa Office is implementing in Ethiopia with financial support from the European Union (EU). The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO or the EU concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city, or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The ideas and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNESCO or The European Union and do not commit these organizations in any way.

The first coronavirus-infected person was reported on Dec 31, 2021, in Wuhan China. 

According to John Hopkins’ Covid-19 report, Since the first infected person was detected, out of 236 million total cases more than 5 million people have died. In the very first six months, the coronavirus has caused more than 1million deaths with substantial social and economic upheavals.   

Covid-19 vaccines have been scientifically proven to save lives, but for a selected group of people in the religious realm, the more important matter is eternal salvation. The conflict between religion and science is not really about facts rather they are about morals and values. Even though there are many vaccines produced annually, the question remains why the Covid-19 vaccine would specifically carry mysterious and ominous power. 

Most of the time the idea of vaccines and getting Covid-19 vaccination is controversial especially for a religious society like Ethiopia. Coming up with a new invention of the Covid-19 vaccine is considered a wicked act of chipping people and tracking them down from then on. Most of the churches and monasteries teach that it’s some kind of devilish propaganda that would separate them from their God. 

However, it remains crucial to understand what role the church as a spiritual leader l, amongst other tasks, takes in sending out the right message to people so as to prevent unnecessarily and how many deaths could have been prevented if the correct message had been proclaimed. Even though the church has a more important role of preaching hope, not fear, in a Covid-19 world. Different religious leaders are warning their congregational members by citing the Apocalyptic Biblical verse from the Book of Revelation. 

On the New Testament’s the book of Revelation 13:16-18 (16: and he causeth all, both small and great rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads. 17: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. 18: Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescores and six.)  

According to the bible, Mark of the Beast (666) is not a physical or visible mark. During the wave of the coronavirus Different YouTube channels have been warning their viewers not to get vaccinated. For example, a religious content Facebook page with more than 300 thousand followers has released a video titled (666 ሼር አድርጉ ትውልድን የማንቃት ሃላፊነት አለብን) warning people not to get vaccinated. The video has got more than 2000 reactions and more than 400 comments.

The video tries to show an orthodox church found in eastern European country Moldova “denounced the potential use of a vaccine against the coronavirus, calling it an antichrist plot to microchip people or introduce other foreign devices into the human body.” 

Religious leaders are even blamed for getting vaccinated and encouraging people to take the vaccine when they can save people’s life. People who don’t want to get vaccinated complain about spiritual leaders who encourage people to take the vaccine. Especially in the current situation in Ethiopia, the leaders are reprimanded for preferring to keep their mouth shut when people are slaughtered and killed while trying to encourage people to take the Vaccine. 

When the issue of vaccines is raised most of the time it’s controversial. People relate it with Microsoft preparing a microchip to track down people who are vaccinated and Introducing foreign devices into the human body. During my interview with someone who believes that the vaccine is demonic and the vaccine caused a severe illness, he showed me a video (removed by Tiktok) of people getting paralyzed after taking the vaccine.

A woman named Yabsira is a Christian woman who positively accepts the idea of getting the vaccine, and took it without any kind of hesitation. She believes that the church has been gullible over the years and without scientific verifications of facts has been deceived and misled. She said that each one of us has to come up with resolutions and help others to make the right choices based on facts and not speculations.   

—————————————————————————————————————————————————

HaqCheck is a local multilingual fact-checking project based in Ethiopia, formed inside Addis Zeybe’s newsroom, now Inform Africa’s Counter Disinformation Project – a board-led Civil Society Organization (CSO) – dedicated to verifying media contents from social to the mainstream. HaqCheck works in collaboration with media outlets to monitor media contents in English and four local languages (Amharic, Afaan Oromo, Tigrigna, and Somali).

This report is produced with the support of UNESCO under the #CoronavirusFacts: Addressing the ‘Disinfodemic’ on COVID-19 in conflict-prone Environments that the UNESCO Addis Ababa Office is implementing in Ethiopia with financial support from the European Union (EU). The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO or the EU concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city, or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The ideas and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNESCO or The European Union and do not commit these organizations in any way.

A number of Facebook posts showing images of organisms cautions the audience saying, “Don’t be Vaccinated! the vaccines contain bacteria.” We can assume here that the subject of the post is the Covid-19 vaccine, since the current controversial vaccine in Ethiopia is the Covid-19 vaccine. 

However, none of these claims are true.

Covid-19 was declared as a pandemic on March 11, 2020, by the World Health Organization (WHO).

On March 13, 2020, Ethiopia’s Health Minister Lia Tadesse confirmed the country’s first case of coronavirus.  A 48-year-old Japanese national who had entered the country after visiting Burkina Faso has tested positive for the virus.

The vaccine administration began on March 13, 2021, prioritizing health care and frontline workers. The Ethiopian Ministry of Health announced on April 1  that people over the age of 65 and those aged between 55 to 64 with underlying health issues would start getting vaccinated starting from April 5. In Ethiopia, there have been 368,979 confirmed cases of Covid-19 with 6,630 deaths, reported to WHO until November 16, 2021. As of 14 November 2021, a total of 5,066,481 vaccine doses have been administered.

However, Haqcheck inspected the images by reverse image search in order to ratify the claims. The photos in the Facebook posts are not images taken from vaccine samples. They appear to be taken from an article on the Tuberculosis Foundation Website, entitled “What is Tuberculosis?”. 

Furthermore, in an effort to ratify the claim, we spoke to Meskerem, the Secretary of the National task force of vaccine issues, at the Ministry of Health. “The claims are totally false. There are no bacteria in the vaccine,” she explained. 

Therefore, due to the aforementioned reasons, HaqCheck rated the statement as FALSE. 

A YouTube channel, named Tigray Television, with more than 274 thousand subscribers has posted a news video captioned, “today on Wollo district the fascist leader Abiy Ahmed conducted an airstrike using drones. And civilians are injured by the attack.” on Nov 9, 2021. By the time this article was published the YouTube video had more than 73 thousand views, with more than 1600 reactions.

However, HaqCheck analyzed one of the video footage used in the news report and rendered it  False.

  

Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) forces and the Federal Government of Ethiopia have been in an active war in northern Ethiopia since November 2020.  At the end of June 2021, the Federal Government declared a sudden unilateral ceasefire and pulled out its troops from Tigray after a request from the Provisional Government of the region.

Thereafter, the TPLF forces had been advancing southward territories in the Amhara and the Afar Regional States. Reports of fresh military offensives and counter-offensives have come out recently. They have also took control of  Dessie and Kombolcha cities in the  Amhara Regional State.

Amid the skirmishes between the belligerents, the Ethiopian Air Force has undertaken several aerial attacks allegedly targeting TPLF forces and their military facilities since Oct 18.  

In the context of this situation, the TPLF-affiliated regional media Tigray Television came up with a report that the Ethiopian Government bombarded Wollo targeting civilians.

The video released by Tigray Television used footage featured in a report by OMN (Oromia Media Network television) in support of the news that the Federal Government used drones and bombing in Wollo.

HaqCheck has traced back the video used by OMN. The news report stated that “Wollo is bombed by Prosperity Party (Federal Government) drones and heavy artilleries which targeted civilians”. Fatima Nurye, an invited guest speaker in the report,  told OMN that, “a religious and cultural place for both Christians and Muslims called Tursina is bombed by the Ethiopian Air Force.”     

HaqCheck interrogated the video by using a screenshot from the footage and found out that the video was released on Nov 6, 2021, on the official AFP News Agency YouTube channel showing a massive explosion of a petroleum station in Freetown Sierra Leone. During the incident, at least 92 people were dead. According to witnesses, the accident happened when a vehicle in a car accident caught fire. The flames then spread, burning people in cars and on roads nearby. 

Even Though there is a continuous military engagement between the Federal Government and the TPLF in the Amhara Regional State, the video footage used by Tigray Television’s report in support of the claim doesn’t actually show drone airstrikes by the Ethiopian forces. Therefore HaqCheck rendered the claim False.                                  

A viral Facebook post emerged on Nov 16, 2021, sharing two images with the claim that the bulk of ammunition in the images was seized in Addis Ababa during the current raid. The post has received close to five thousand reactions, over five hundred shares, and more than five hundred comments at the time of this publication.

However, HaqCheck fact-checked the claim and confirmed that the images in the post don’t show ammunition recently seized in Addis Ababa during the raid.

As the armed conflict in the northern and northeastern parts of the country aggravated, it posed a security crisis almost all over the country. The Ethiopian Government recently declared a six-month period of a state of emergency. In addition, Oromia Regional State has imposed a curfew to thwart security threats.

The government has been repeatedly calling residents of Addis Ababa to watch over their neighborhoods and notify any potential security threat.

Recently, reports have come from the police that security forces are seizing various materials that would have been used for rogue purposes.

Amid this situation, the Facebook post appeared claiming that the bulk of ammunition in the image was seized in Addis Ababa during the raid.

However, HaqCheck confirmed that the images were taken from previous publications eight months ago.

The first image in the post was taken from an article that reported ammunition was seized by the Kombolcha branch of the Ethiopian Customs Commission by Fana Broadcasting Corporation, Afaan Oromoo page issued on Apr 15, 2021. The original image can be accessed here.

The second image posted to support the claim was first published in a Facebook post on Apr 16, 2021, with a text explaining that two individuals with over 5,000 ammunition were arrested in Kombolcha. The original Facebook post can be found here.

Therefore, HaqCheck confirmed that the images in the Facebook post don’t show ammunition recently seized in Addis Ababa and rated the post FALSE.

A helicopter shot down by TPLF forces

The armed conflict between the Tigray Liberation Front (TPLF) forces and the Ethiopian Federal Government-led forces has expanded. In this context, there had been many false and misleading claims from both sides or their respective supporters on social media.

One of the claims fact-checked by HaqCheck last week was a social media post that shared images on Facebook with the claim that a military helicopter belonging to the Ethiopian armed forces was shot down by TPLF forces near the strategic town of Mille in Afar Region.

Three viral posts that made a similar claim that TPLF forces taken down a fighter helicopter near Mille were interrogated by HaqCheck. The first claim appeared on Nov 11, 2021, on the official Facebook page of TPLF, which has more than 600,000 followers, with a false image that shows a burning helicopter. The post had been shared more than 400 times and received more than 2 thousand reactions within an hour. However, the image was found to be taken from a  publication posted four years ago by The Time on Oct. 23, 2016, in an article entitled “I was blown up and trapped by Isis guns”.

A second post with a false image was shared by the Facebook page of the regional TV outlet, Tigray Television, which has more than 504,000 followers. The post claimed that “The Hero Tigray Army taken down a military helicopter and burned it this morning at Mille front…” The post had been shared more than 175 times and received more than 1.5 thousand reactions at the time. However, HaqCheck could learn that the image was taken on September 9, 2016, and published for the first time on a website with the caption “A Mil Mi-35 attack helicopter during the Caucasus 2016 strategic drills at Opuk range of Russia’s Southern Military District”.

The two claims were rated by HaqCheck FALSE. 

Oromo Liberation Army advancing to Addis Ababa

There have also been claims accompanied by false images regarding the OLA’s advance towards the capital, Addis Ababa.

A Facebook page, on Nov 11, 2021, posted images in support of its claim that reads, “The Oromo Liberation Army has overtaken the Shoa region in Addis. They are waiting for the troops coming from the north side.”. The post is published in the Somali language by the page having more than 423,000 followers. The image was false and does not support the claim. It was taken from a previous Facebook post made on September 28, 2020. The caption of the original post written in Afaan Oromo implies that the pictures were taken in Jimma city before the current war broke out. Even Though we can’t find the second image, a close examination of similar elements and details (a soldier’s beanie, a necklace artifact, a white mark of the asphalt road, and the darkness in both images) reveals that it was shot at the time the first image was taken.

Therefore, the post was rated FALSE.

A second social media post claimed that OLA troops were seen on roads that lead to the capital Addis Ababa. A Facebook page that has more than 423 thousand followers has posted an image on Nov 9, captioned,  “ Oromia Liberation Army was seen tonight on the roads leading to the gate of Addis.” By the time this article was published, the post had more than 1000 reactions and was shared more than 400 times. However, the images were taken from previously published images by a Twitter account on Aug 23, 2021, in which the tweet claimed that Negele Borana town, 587km from the capital, was partially captured by OLA. 

Therefore, HaqCheck rendered the post as False.

Misleading Reuters statement

Another misleading statement was made last week by Reuters in one of its reports about the ongoing situation in Ethiopia. Reuters published an article on Nov 10, 2021, with the title: “Ethiopia rounds up high-profile Tigrayans, U.N. staff”. 

In the third paragraph of the article describing the state of Emergency in Ethiopia, it reads,“…requires citizens to carry ID cards that can indicate ethnic origin.” 

It’s a misleading statement. Though the government stated that residents must bear identity cards with themselves, the current resident IDs don’t show the ethnic origin of the holder. Residents’ ID cards issued and used currently do not indicate either the ethnic origin or birthplace of a person, as asserted by  Reuters’ report.

HaqCheck, hence,  rated the article as MISLEADING.

Oromo People Liberation Front forces near Addis Ababa

A post by an Egyptian magazine, Egypt Today’sFacebook page with more than 139,000 followers posted a photo on Nov. 8, 2021,  in which it claimed “Leader of Oromo People Liberation Front says forces are 40 kilometers away from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.”  The Image shows trekking arrayed soldiers, supposedly OLF forces according to the caption of the post.

However, the post was false due to inaccuracies. In the first place, there is no such armed group called ‘Oromo People Liberation Front’. There is an armed group with the name ‘Oromo Liberation Army (OLA)’ that is currently active in the armed conflict in Ethiopia. The group claims it had taken control of several towns in the western, central, and southern Oromia regions.

Secondly, the image was found to be posted for the first time by Ethiopian Insight on August 10, 2020. The picture was published with a news analysis entitled, “Tigray-federal tit-for-tat threatens trouble”, even before the ongoing war. 

Hence, the post was rated FALSE by HaqCheck.

The Ethiopian government and TPLF agreeing to a negotiation?

The Ethiopian Reporter newspaper published an article that stated that the Ethiopian government and TPLF agreed to a negotiation. But later on, the newspaper published a correction that the headline and the claim that the belligerents agreed to negotiation was a mistake made during translation. The article prompted similar social media posts with the same and/or related claims.

The article was later published with a title that describes that the Ethiopian government and Tigray leaders told Olusegun Obasanjo, AU envoy, that since the problem of the conflict is political, the solution would be political.

Recommendations

International media outlets should refrain from making controversial and misleading reports. They should be careful and consider the sensitive situation in the country.

We always urge social media users to be conscious of the reports. This includes disinformation trends and media consumers should identify the right pages and sources to understand the intention and credibility of the message they are reading or sharing.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————–

HaqCheck is a local multilingual fact-checking project based in Ethiopia, formed inside Addis Zeybe’s newsroom, now Inform Africa’s Counter Disinformation Project – a board-led Civil Society Organization (CSO) – dedicated to verifying media contents from social to the mainstream. HaqCheck works in collaboration with media outlets to monitor media contents in English and four local languages (Amharic, Afaan Oromo, Tigrigna, and Somali).

This report is produced with the support of UNESCO under the #CoronavirusFacts: Addressing the ‘Disinfodemic’ on COVID-19 in conflict-prone Environments that the UNESCO Addis Ababa Office is implementing in Ethiopia with financial support from the European Union (EU). The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO or the EU concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city, or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The ideas and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNESCO or The European Union and do not commit these organizations in any way.

On Nov 11, 2021, a Facebook page with more than 69,000 followers shared a video with an explanatory caption that reads, “Video clarifying the type of aircraft helicopter Mi 35 that TDF has shot down around the Mille area…”. The video attached to the post, to support the claim, shows a descending down-burning helicopter. 

Until this article was published, the post had been shared more than 410 times and had more than 31 thousand views.

However, HaqCheck could confirm that the video doesn’t show a helicopter shot down during the current conflict and rated it FALSE. 

Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) forces and the Federal Government of Ethiopia have been in an active war in northern Ethiopia Since November 2020.  Last November, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent the Defence Force to Tigray to oust (TPLF) from power. In June, TPLF took control of Mekelle, the regional capital. 

The war has widened its scope recently. It is being reported that TPLF is continuing its expansion towards the neighboring Amhara and the Afar Regional States. Several media outlets are reporting that the Tigrean forces are advancing to take over the capital, defeating the federal and allied forces.

In the saga of controlling the capital and crippling the government by TPLF, taking over key towns and strategic areas is eyed by the force as basic. In this context lies the town of Mille, a district in Afar Regional State, strategically important to control the main road connecting the country to Djibouti. In this context, a Facebook post on Nov…..appeared on the verified page of Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) claiming the Tigrean forces shot down a military helicopter of the Ethiopian army at Mille front. HaqCheck investigated the claim and found out that the image used to support the post is from The Time magazine back in 2016 and doesn’t actually show the situation, rendering it False.

The claim discussed in this article is published on Facebook following the previous claim.  

However, a reverse image search of screenshots from the video revealed that the video is neither from Ethiopia nor shows a recent incident in the country. The footage found shows a Syrian Air Force helicopter taken down by rebels in the area of Nayrab in eastern Idlib. It was shared by The Telegraph on Feb 11, 2020, dated even before the war began. 

Furthermore, the post tries to trick users by changing the Arabic voice on the original video and adding voiceover recorded in the Tigrigna language.  

Therefore, due to these reasons, HaqCheck confirmed the claim is FALSE.

A Facebook page that has more than 423 thousand followers has posted an image on Nov 9, captioned,  “ Oromia Liberation Army was seen tonight on the roads at the gate leading to Addis.” By the time this article was published, the post had more than 1000 reactions and was shared more than 400 times. However, HaqCheck has analyzed the post and rendered it as False.

Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) was a military wing of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), from which it is claimed to split later. On May 1, 2021, the FDRE Council of Ministers designated both the OLA and TPLF as terrorist groups. OLA is addressed by the Government as OLF Shane. 

In August, the OLF Shane announced that it has formed an alliance with the TPLF. 

Even though the two rebel groups are claiming that they are a few miles away from the capital and will end the war with victory soon, the Federal Government dismissed such claims as mere propaganda. 

In consideration of the current situation wherein it is difficult to control the stability in the country with the regular law enforcement procedure, the Ethiopian Federal Government has declared a nationwide state of emergency.

Quoted in a news report by AFP an OLF Shane leader said,  “its fighters were near the capital and are preparing to strike an attack, promising an end to the conflict soon.”

It was in such a framework of the current situation that the Facebook post appeared.

A similar collage of images was first posted on a Twitter account on Aug 23, 2021 (about 45 days ago before the current situation) claiming that Negele Borana town, 587km from the capital, was partially captured by OLA. 

       

Even though there are several claims that the OLA is a few away from the capital, Addis Ababa, the image doesn’t show OLA army members on the roads leading to the gate of Addis Ababa at the time claimed by the post. Therefore, HaqCheck has analyzed the Facebook post and rendered it False.

A Facebook page, on Nov 11, 2021, posted images in support of its claim that reads, “The Oromo Liberation Army has overtaken the Shoa region in Addis. They are waiting for the troops coming from the north side.”. The post is published in the Somali language by the page having more than 423,000 followers. 

The post was viral and received more than 2.4 likes and was shared more than 451 times by the time this article was published. HaqCheck has examined the images and rated the post as FALSE. 

The Ethiopian federal government designated the Oromo Liberation Army (aka OLF Shene) and Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) as a terrorist group on May 1, 2021. The two groups announced their alliance on August 11, 2021. After the war erupted last November in Tigray, spreading to the neighboring regions of Afar and Amhara, TPLF started marching to different cities and towns including North and South Wollo . On November 1 OLA said it had seized the town of Kemissie, 335 km from Addis Ababa. Foreign media outlets reported that the anti-government armed forces continued their march to reach the capital. 

It was in this context that the Facebook claim appeared.

However, a reverse image search of the first Picture shows that the picture was posted for the first time by a Facebook page on September 28, 2020, with two other images. The caption of this post written in Afaan Oromo implies that the pictures were taken in Jimma city, even before the current war broke out. Even Though we can’t find the second image, a close examination of similar elements and details (a soldier’s beanie, a necklace artifact, a white mark of the asphalt road, and the darkness in both images) reveals that it was shot at the time the first image was taken.

The Original 

The Second Image

Therefore, HaqCheck confirmed that the images do not show  Oromo Liberation Army has overtaken the Shoa in Addis and rendered the post as FALSE.