Post falsely claims video shows road leading to French-owned uranium mine in Niger

This article is more than one year old.
Published on September 22, 2023 at 17:43
3 min read
By Erin FLANAGAN

Strained relations between Niger and France following the July coup in the West African country have sparked misinformation online. One social media post featuring a video of a truck falling through a rickety bridge claims it shows a road leading from a French company’s uranium mine in Niger. However, a local official in central Cameroon confirmed the video was filmed there, not in Niger. Reverse image searches corroborate this.

“See the road that France use to transport uranium from its mine in Niger (sic),” reads a TikTok post published on September 17, 2023.

A screenshot of the false post, taken on September 22, 2023

Viewed more than 74,000 times, the 48-second clip shows a white pickup truck driving across a wooden bridge in a forested area.

The truck falls through the bridge, landing in the river below. Onlookers rush towards the vehicle and open the door to try and help those inside.

The narrator claims that France destroyed another road from the mine, calling it “embarrassing” to have Niger’s former colonial power “stealing” its resources and leaving locals with poor infrastructure.

Soured relations

On July 26, 2023, Niger’s presidential guard staged a coup, ousting Mohamed Bazoum, the country’s democratically elected president (archived here).

Relations between Niger and France, the country’s former colonial power, went swiftly downhill after Paris stood by Bazoum (archived here).

France’s nuclear fuel firm Orano still operates a uranium mine in northern Niger, where about 900 people are employed (archived here).

The country’s military coup raised concerns about Europe’s dependency on uranium mined in the West African nation for its nuclear power plants (archived here).

However, the claim that the video shows a truck falling through a bridge in Niger is false.

Cameroon, not Niger

Several comments under the TikTok post suggested that the video was filmed in Cameroon, not Niger.

Using a keyword search for “truck falling from bridge Cameroon” in French, AFP Fact Check found several social media posts featuring the same video, like this one on X (formerly Twitter).

A TikTok account posted the same video on September 12, 2023 -- five days before the false post was published.

A screenshot of the TikTok post, taken on September 22, 2023

The user also posted a second video showing the same incident from a different angle.

A screenshot of the second TikTok post, taken on September 22, 2023

Neither of the TikTok videos specifies where the incident happened.

But another X post claimed the video was taken in a town in central Cameroon called Nguelemendouka (archived here).

A screenshot of a post on X, taken on September 22, 2023

AFP Fact Check reached out to Alex Mimbang, the mayor of Nguelemendouka, who confirmed that the incident occurred in Elono, another town just three kilometres away (archived here).

A screenshot of Google Maps, taken on September 22, 2023

“The video was definitely taken in Nguelemendouka…The incident happened on September 10, 2023,” he told AFP Fact Check.

“It is a plank bridge only meant to be used by pedestrians and motorcyclists. It is a detour for a bridge currently under construction made of more durable materials.”

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