A Twitter account with more than 200 thousand followers shared a post claiming that TPLF militants in Maytsemri surrendered their weapons to local authorities and gathered in temporary camps. The post presented four pictures to support the claim.
By the time this article is published the post had close to two thousand reactions and was retweeted more than half a thousand times.
Yet, HaqCheck inspected the post and confirmed the images don’t support the claim. Accordingly, the post is rendered False.
On 2 November 2022, a peace deal was signed between Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian federal government.
The TPLF agreed to surrender its weapons and demobilize its combatant forces. The peace pact nullified the regional election conducted in the Tigray regional state without the consent of the federal government in September 2020.
On Nov 12, 2022, top military leaders of the Ethiopia National Defence Force (ENDF) and the TPLF forces (under the name of Tigray Armed Combatants) agreed to form a joint committee to “elaborate on the modalities for the implementation of comprehensive disarmament, demobilization and reintegration program.”
Per the peace agreement, disarmament of heavy weapons will be conducted when foreign forces and non-ENDF forces leave the Tigray region.
After disarmament and demobilization, TPLF combatants will be reintegrated into the Ethiopian army, according to the peace deal.
Against this backdrop, a claim appeared on Twitter sharing four images that TPLF combatants in Maytsemri were already surrendering their weapons to local authorities and gathering in temporary camps.
In an effort to verify the claim, HaqCheck spotted the images in a video shared by a local media outlet, Fana Broadcasting Corporation (FBC), on its Facebook and Youtube channels. The video was shared with the claim that TPLF’s arms depot was found in a raid in Mekelle.
Therefore, HaqCheck rated the post False due to its usage of inaccurate images to support the claim.