A Facebook page with more than 45,000 followers posted an image on Jan 07, 2022, claiming that an action was taken in response to an attack by the Tigray people liberation front (TPLF) at the Humera front during which its army was destroyed by a drone attack. Other Facebook pages also posted the image with the same claim.
However, the image doesn’t show a truck destroyed by a drone attack and HaqCheck rendered it as false.
It had been over a year since the war between the Tigray people liberation front (TPLF) and The Federal Government of Ethiopia began. After staying in control of Mekelle for seven months, The federal government declared a unilateral ceasefire and pulled out its troops from most parts of Tigray at the end of June 2021.
The declaration of ceasefire was not accepted by TPLF; rather the rebel group started advancing to Afar and Amhara regional states. TPLF stayed in control of several cities until the military offensives and counter-offensives led by prime minister Abiy Ahmed(Ph.d.) from the frontlines, which started on Nov 22, 2021. Most parts of both regions were liberated in a short period of time.
Even though TPLF Officials stated that they were not defeated, but retreated from the neighboring regions in order to give a chance for peace. The federal government stated that TPLF didn’t retreat but was completely defeated. Marking the end of the operation led by the Prime Minister, the federal government announced that the defense forces won’t advance further to Tigray and will be positioned at the borders.
There had been accusations on the federal government and its allies that they had been in engagements on different fronts trying to advance into Tigray and TPLF troops were conducting counter-offensive on the federal government forces.
A claim appeared on Facebook in the framework of this situation.
In addition to the clear visual differences between the trucks that can be detected by a naked eye, HaqCheck used Reverse image search to interrogate the image used in the post to show the destroyed truck.
However, HaqCheck found out that it was posted on Dec 26, 2021, by the #nomore-Ethiopia website as one of the properties destroyed by TPLF during its control of Kombolcha town.
Hence, due to the inaccuracy of the image used to support the claim, HaqCheck rated it as false.
