An image was shared on May 3, 2022, on Facebook along with a text description that claims the picture to show Italian soldiers who surrendered to the Ethiopian army in the battle of Adwa.
The Facebook post was popular and was shared over three hundred times.
The same image was also fact-checked by HaqCheck last year.
However, HaqCheck interrogated the image and confirmed that the picture doesn’t support the claim. Therefore, the claim was rated FALSE.
The Battle of Adwa was a military confrontation between the Italian and Ethiopian army under the leadership of Emperor Menelik II on Mar 1, 1896. The one-day battle was near the present-day Adwa town in northern Ethiopia.
The Italian army advanced southwards from Eritrea to takeover Ethiopia as an Italian colony.
The Italian army led by General Oreste Baratieri was defeated by the Ethiopian troops.
Consequently, many Italian soldiers and askaris were killed and captured during the battle.
The post was made two days before the 81th commemoration of the Ethiopian Patriots Day celebrated on May 5, 2022. The day marks the end of the Italian occupation of Ethiopia and the arrival of Emperor Haile Selassie from exile in Addis Ababa on May 5, 1941.
In this context appeared the image-backed post claiming that the soldiers in the picture were Italian troops who surrendered to the Ethiopian army in the Battle of Adwa.
However, HaqCheck investigated the image and proved that the picture doesn’t show Italian troops who surrendered to Ethiopians during the battle.
The image, taken in April 1945 has been published on various sites including Encyclopedia. The sites state that the image shows a black American soldier of the 12th Armored Division guarding over a group of Nazi war prisoners captured in a forest in Germany during WWII. Therefore, HaqCheck rendered the claim FALSE due to the usage of an inaccurate image.
