A Facebook page with more than eleven thousand followers shared a post on Dec 4, 2022, claiming that ethnic Amharas were killed in Wollega, Oromia. The post published a video that shows people transporting dead bodies with stretchers.
The post was virally circulating on Facebook and was watched by close to thirty thousand users.
However, HaqCheck inspected the video and confirmed that the video used to prove the claim was old. Thus, the post was rendered False.
Armed conflict between the Ethiopian government and the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), a military organization called by the government Shene has been raging.
Besides, there have been violence and massacres targeting civilians. Ethnic Amharas and Oromos were reported to have been recurrently killed by government and armed group attacks.
Last June, more than 200 civilians, mostly ethnic Amharas, were killed in an attack in a place called Tole, in the West Wollega zone of the Oromia region. The government accused OLA of the killing while the armed group denies the blame.
Conflict recently arose in Oromia, particularly in the border areas adjacent to the Amhara regional state.
A local media organization reported last week that Amhara militants (Fano) killed dozens of people in the Kiremu district of the East Wollega zone on Nov 25 and 29, 2022.
Another news site claimed that over 50 civilians were killed in the area in an attack against ethnic Amharas.
It is against this background that the video emerged on Facebook claiming that ethnic Amharas were killed in the latest violence in Wollega, Oromia.
To investigate the claim, HaqCheck used keywords to cross-check if the video was previously published.
Thus, HaqCheck found out that the video was previously published on Mar 5, 2021, on the Facebook page of the Amhara Prosperity Party (APP). The video was shared with a short Amharic caption that ethnic Amharas were massacred by the TPLF in the Mai Kadra town.
Although there are claims that ethnic Amharas who live in the Oromia regional state were killed in an ongoing conflict, the video clip used in the Facebook post doesn’t show Amhara civilians recently killed in Wollega, Oromia. The video doesn’t prove the claim.Therefore, HaqCheck rated the post False because it used an old and false video to support the claim.
