Photo of old submarine misrepresented as being en route to Uganda

Published on April 5, 2024 at 18:22
3 min read
By James OKONG'O, AFP Kenya

A truck transporting a large cargo from the Kenyan port of Mombasa sparked public curiosity, drawing crowds as it travelled through towns and villages in March. Kenya's state-owned power company revealed on social media that the mystery freight was a ship headed for Uganda. Soon after, online users shared an image alleging it showed another truck, this time transporting a submarine to landlocked Uganda. But this claim is false: the photos feature an old U-17 submarine travelling through Germany – from a northern port city to a museum in the southwest – back in May 2023.

A post making the claim has attracted over 1,400 comments since it was published on Facebook on March 28, 2024.

Screenshot showing the false post, taken on April 4, 2024

Written in Swahili, the post translates to: “Another shipment destined for Uganda, the journey has already started.”

The photo shows a large green cargo truck transporting what looks like an old submarine down a narrow road while crowds are watching.

The claim was also shared elsewhere on Facebook (here, here and here).

In March, numerous Kenyan news sites and social media accounts reported that a mysterious, oversized cargo was transported through the country to Uganda, with curious onlookers photographing the giant freight (archived here).

The landlocked country of Uganda relies on the port of Mombasa in neighbouring Kenya as its primary gateway for imports and exports.

The Kenya Power and Lighting Company then confirmed the cargo was a ship headed for Uganda.

Finally! Our technical teams across the Kenya - Uganda transport corridor successfully provided a safe passage for the delivery of this mammoth cargo, a ship that left Mombasa 23 days ago destined for a neighbouring country. pic.twitter.com/2xbK5upFR0
— The Kenya Power & Lighting Company Plc. (@KenyaPower) March 1, 2024

But the picture shared in the misleading posts that surfaced in late March does not show cargo destined for Uganda.

German submarine

Through a reverse image search, we found the image of the submarine featured on the stock photo site Alamy (archived here) as well as in a year-old YouTube clip (archived here).

In both cases, the captions indicated that the image shows an old German submarine on its way to a museum in May 2023.

The cargo was first transported from the port city of Kiel to the Technology Museum in Speyer, where it was prepared for onward transport to its final destination, the Technology Museum in Sinsheim.

Alamy credits the image to the German news agency DPA.

AFP Fact Check conducted a keyword search in DPA’s photo archives and found several images from May 2023 showing the submarine being transported.

A comparison of the image shared on social media and photos in the DPA archives reveals matching features, including the green truck, the submarine’s markings, and the two flags mounted on the submarine.

A side-by-side comparison of the photo from the DPA archives (left) and the image from social media

The Technology Museum in Sinsheim wrote about the old submarine’s journey on its website, where it shared more images (archived here).

The U-17 submarine was decommissioned in 2010 following almost four decades of service.

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