A Facebook page with more than 100 thousand followers has shared a post on Mar 26, 2022, captioned, “ Following PM Abiy Ahmed’s decision [the humanitarian truce] the Eritrean army deployed 13 modern military divisions to [Tigray] border.”
By the time this article was published the post had more than a1400reactions and was shared more than 140 times.
But, HaqCheck inspected the image used to support the claim and rendered it False.
Responding to questions raised from the parliament about the rumored negotiation between the federal government and TPLF On Feb 2,t PM Abiy Ahmed said, “I heard a lot about it. But there has been no negotiation yet.”
However, didn’t rule out the possibility of talks with TPLF. “We didn’t negotiate so far does not mean though that we will not do so. Negotiation is a method of identifying problem-solving options.”
The Ethiopian government declared an immediate humanitarian truce in Tigray Region on March 24. The action is intended to allow the provision of humanitarian assistance to the region. As part of the truce, federal authorities have called on the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) to “desist from all acts of further aggression” and withdraw from areas they occupied in neighboring regions.
Later after the federal government’s decision, the TPLF agreed to the cessation of hostilities..
Amid the truce decision, there are different claims about Ethiopian troops seen advancing to Tigray borders.
The Facebook post appeared in the light of this situation.
HaqCheck tried to inspect the image used to back the report and proved that the image was published back on Aug 2, 2019, in an article titled, “Sawa: Silver Jubilee of National Service Celebrated.”
The event was the official celebration of the Silver Jubilee of the establishment of Eritrea’s Sawa Military Training Center and the launching of the National Service Program as well as the graduation of members of the 32nd round national service program.
Despite the fact that there are claims of deployment of Eritrean forces on Tigray borders, the image used by the Facebook page to support the claim is old and is manipulated to prove the information that it doesn’t actually represent. Thus, HaqCheck rendered it False.
