False: The image doesn’t show an ongoing drought in Ethiopia

On Feb 23, 2023, a Twitter account posted an image claiming that it shows an ongoing drought in Borana, Oromia regional state. The image depicts several carcasses.

The Twitter post was seen over two thousand times and was shared more than fifty times.

However, HaqCheck confirmed that the image doesn’t show the ongoing drought in Borana, Oromia. Thus, the post was rated False due to the application of an inaccurate picture.

Reports indicate that many areas in the Oromia and Somali regional states of Ethiopia have been hit by severe drought. The drought has endured for more than five consecutive years now. A severe drought has decimated the Borana Zone of the Oromia region.

The eastern and southern parts of the Oromia region particularly the Borana Zone was highly affected by drought during the previous years. Last year, thousands of children, women, and elderly people faced severe health problems such as malnutrition and thousands of cattle died due to the drought.

The enduring drought has been caused by climate change followed by an acute shortage of rainfall in the areas. Climate change resulted in land degradation and significant depletion of pasture in Borana.

The drought exposed eight hundred thousand residents in the zone to an immediate food assistance.

The people in the eastern parts of Ethiopia such as Borana are pastoralists and semi-pastoralists and their lives depend on the availability of pastures for cattle. The absence of rainfall for five subsequent years has devastated the livelihood of the communities of Borana.

Against this backdrop, a Twitter post came out sharing an image that depicts carcasses lying on the ground with a claim that the picture shows an ongoing drought in the Borana zone of the Oromia regional state.

However, the image is old and doesn’t show a current drought in Borana. The picture first appeared on Facebook on Mar 18, 2022, describing that the Bale and Borana zones of the Oromia region were severely affected by the drought.

Therefore, HaqCheck rated the post False because of its employment of an inaccurate image to support the claim.

Published by

Hagos Gebreamlak

Hagos is a senior fact-checker at HaqCheck. He has worked for Fortune as a reporter previously.

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