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| - Fact Check: More than a decade old photos passed off as recent attacks by troops in Nigeria's Imo State
If social media is to be believed, the viral photos show a recent attack in the Orsu Local Government Area where houses and other property were destroyed.
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India Today Fact Check
While there are news reports about a recent attack on the Imo community by the Nigerian Army, the viral photos are old, some shared online as early as 2009.
A set of three photos, supposedly showing massive destruction caused by Nigerian soldiers in Imo State, a state in the South-East geopolitical zone of Nigeria, are doing the rounds on social media. The photos include that of a burning car, a raging fire in a congested area, and a helicopter. If social media is to be believed, the viral photos show a recent attack in the Orsu Local Government Area (LGA) where houses and other property were destroyed.
People shared the photos on Twitter claiming, “SAD NEWS: Nigerian Soldiers Reportedly Invade Orsu LGA In Imo State, Burn Over 40 Houses, Cars, Other Properties And Some Youths Were Killed.”
Archives of these posts can be found here, here and here.
AFWA found that all three photos were old, some shared as early as 2009. We investigated the viral photos one by one.
THE MARKET FIRE
Upon reverse-searching the photo of the massive fire in a jam-packed area on Tineye, we found that it had been shared online as early as December 2013.
Google reverse search of this photo took us to a YouTube video shared by Davas Media, a Ghana-based news outlet. The video was titled, “Fire Outbreak In Kumasi Central Market Destroys Properties Worth Millions Of Cedis”. The thumbnail of this video was the same as the viral photo.
Further searches led us to a Research Gate paper titled “The trends of fire outbreaks in Ghana and ways to prevent these incidences”. According to it, the photo showed a fire outbreak in the Kumasi Central Market on December 30, 2012.
The area had reportedly witnessed a series of fire outbreaks between 2009 and 2012.
THE BURNING CAR
A reverse search of the photo of the burning car led us to the photo agency called Demotix that had supposedly shared it in 2013. We were not able to find the photo on the website.The photo’s URL on TinEye however, mentioned the keywords “Nigerian police headquarters damaged after explosion abuja”.
Using this clue, we found this photo shared by a blog on June 16, 2011. It alleged that the Abuja police headquarters bombing was done by Boko Haram, a terrorist organisation.
A report on the Abuja blasts by Al Jazeera mentioned that it was a suicide bombing and that the Boko Haram had claimed responsibility for it. At least two people died, many more were injured, and dozens of vehicles were completely burnt in the incident.
THE HELICOPTER
A reverse search of the photo of the helicopter led us to an aviation photography website called Airliners.net. The photo shared there on March 20, 2009, was supposedly that of a Boeing AH-64D Apache Longbow of the Netherlands Air Force. That this photo is more than a decade old proves it has nothing to do with the recent incident.
We visited NASA’s FIRMS or Fire Information for Resource Management System to check if there was a recent fire in Imo State as claimed. FIRMS tracks fires globally and provides maps of areas affected. The website showed no fire in the region in the recent past.
It’s noteworthy that we found reports of attacks on the Imo community by the Nigerian army in September 2022 on several news websites. However, the photos being shared online have nothing to do with them.
(Written by Sanjana Saxena)
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