Did Eritrea and Ethiopia Heads of States visit South Sudan as alleged, No – Report states the facts

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Author: A story fact checked by Emmanuek Bida and DefyHateNow Ethiopia team

Ethiopia and Eritrea authorities have described the alleged recent visit of their heads of States to South Sudan as false and fabricated information meant to mislead the public.

On March 5, 2021, a post by Ethiopian prominent activist Natnael Mekonnen, an online user with 130K subscribers on Telegram and 240k followers on Facebook claimed that his country head of State, Prime Minister – Abiy Ahmed and Eritrea President Issias Afwerk had a courtesy visit to President Salva Kiir.

That very day, an online media institution – The SudansPost, which has 11K followers on Facebook also posted the same information claiming a visit of such nature.

Debunk:

However, when fact checked both South Sudan and Ethiopia DefyHateNow fact checking teams, it was identified that there was no such visit, qualifying the story as false, manipulated and fabricated types of misinformation.

First evidence: on March 5, 2021, the alleged visit date, Ethiopian Prime Minister was attending a book publication ceremony of “Yemedemer Menged” “The path to medemer” at this particular time.

Second evidence: The image used by one of the media institution to described the visit was taken on March 4, 2019.

On Eritrea’s President Side:

Third evidence: Yemane G/Meskel, Eritrea’s Information Minister retweeted the news and picture used by the personnel and media institution, signifying that the information is fake and shouldn’t be given attention.

Fourth evidence: EwnetCheck, a DefyHateNow’s fact checking project team contacted the Ethiopia Broadcasting Corporation correspondent to the Prime Minister Office, that described the story as factually incorrect.

Fifth evidence: In South Sudan, 211 Check team contacted the Presidential Press Secretary, Ateny Wek Ateny who described the alleged visit as fake news.

Ateny said instead it was Sudan’s Chairperson of the Sovereign Council, Abdel Fattah al Buhran who visited Juba on 3rd March, 2021 and was welcomed by the President.

Note: False information spreads so first, kindly endeavor to always remain cautious while online. Don’t share any content you are not sure of or you don’t know its origin. Think before you click!

To know about our fact-checking process, click the link below, https://211check.org/how-to-fact-check/or contact us via 211check.org to present a claim, our team will immediately fact-check it and send you an immediate feedback.

Image blunder: Eye Radio uses wrong picture and caption to tell a story

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A misleading image

On 14th of March 2021, Eye Radio published a communal violence story where a cattle related attack reportedly left two people killed in Lake State. 

However, the story featured an image with a caption that stated the picture was taken in Yirol County of Lakes State, by the UN Food and Agriculture organization.

It was captioned, “Cattle in Yirol, Lakes State/Credit/FAO”.

Eye Radio’s caption and post

But when fact checked by the 211 team, it was identified that the image was taken at Niamana Livestock market, situated in Mali’s Capital, Bamako.  

The research indicated that the picture was taken by Stevie Mann, a commercial photographer who might have supplied the International Livestock Research Institute – an international agricultural research institute based in Nairobi, Kenya.

The image was taken with a Canon EOS-ID Mark II camera. The original picture is seen below.

Origin image

Due to critics on Facebook, Eye Radio changed the picture both on its website and Facebook page – a great ethical and professional move.

Note: To know about our fact-checking processes, click on https://211check.org/how-to-fact-check/or contact us via 211check.org to present a claim; our team will immediately fact-check it and send you an immediate feedback.