An image shared in a Facebook post on Feb 19, 2022, claimed that thousands of Eritrean soldiers were recently killed in Tigray. The Facebook post published by a page that has over 54 thousand followers was shared more than 169 times by the time this article was published.
However, HaqCheck fact-checked the claim and confirmed that the image below doesn’t show Eritrean troops recently killed in Tigray.
Therefore, HaqCheck rated the post FALSE.
There is an armed conflict between the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), an armed resistance front turned ruling party.
Months ago, there were battles between these forces in the neighboring Afar and Amhara regional states. The TPLF-led armed forces were driven out of the two regional states.
Recently, skirmishes between forces loyal to TPLF and Afar regional armed forces were reported in some districts of the Afar region.
There were social media allegations that Eritrean soldiers were backing Afar regional armed forces.
In this context, the post came out sharing an image with the claim that Eritrean troops were recently killed in Tigray after they tried to invade the regional state.
However, the image was taken and cropped from an old post on the Internet. The original image was published on Jun 13, 2019, along with an article written on the Eritrean Martyrs’ Day, annually commemorated on June 20.
Cropped image
Therefore, HaqCheck confirmed that the image used to support the claim is old and rated it FALSE.
