Old images of bullets captured in Ethiopia resurface with false claim they show recent seizure
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on November 19, 2021 at 15:17
- 3 min read
- By Amanuel NEGUEDE, AFP Ethiopia
Copyright © AFP 2017-2025. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
The images were posted on a pro-government Facebook account called “Natnael Mekonnen” followed by nearly 500,000 people. The post was shared nearly 700 times and has generated over 7,000 likes since it was published on November 16, 2021.
The first photo shows thousands of bullets spilling out of a rice bag, and the second one shows the ammunition laid out on a white tarp.
“#Ethiopia. During searches in Addis Ababa, this was found in one house”, the post's caption reads in Amharic.
On November 2, 2021, the Ethiopian government announced a six-month state of emergency after the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) claimed control of two key cities, Dessie and Kombolcha, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Addis Ababa. This move granted authorities permission to search homes in the capital and other cities.
The Ethiopian government’s November 2020 offensive in the northern Tigray region was meant to be a swift operation but now threatens to unleash instability across the country. As fears grow of a rebel advance on Addis Ababa, authorities have conducted raids and confiscated ammunition in the capital. AFP reported that more than 100 city police officers swarmed an upscale apartment building in central Addis Ababa on November 5, 2021, inspecting tenants’ identification documents and searching every room for weapons.
However, the images shown in the Facebook post were not taken during recent seizures.
Old images
The Addis Ababa police have been releasing pictures of seizures (here, here and here) that happened recently in the country’s capital. However, the images shared in the Facebook post are not among the police's recent pictures.
AFP Fact Check ran reverse image searches and found the same photos in a Facebook post published by state-owned media Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) on April 15, 2021 -- months before the start of the state of emergency and recent seizures.
“Individuals found illegally carrying more than 5,000 rounds of ammunition were arrested,” EBC’s report reads.
It further gives details of the route the men attempted to take while smuggling the ammunition into a public transport bus traveling from Sekota to Bahir Dar.
Furthermore, the account which shared the misleading post had previously shared the same images on Facebook -- with the ECB report copied in the caption -- on April 15, 2021.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
