Fact-check: Did President Kiir cry on his return  from the tour in Bahr el Ghazal?

No, this picture of the president is old  taken way earlier in 2018, and has been on the internet for a long time.

Writer: Jibi Moses

A picture of South Sudan’s President, Salva Kiir was shared by Junub Sudan Press on 23 March 2023 in a post that went viral. The post attracted around 70 reactions, 40 comments and 29 shares in 20 hours. 

“Breaking News!!.

President Kiir shades tears on arrival from Bahr-el-ghazal after he was shown the current rate of Dollar against SSP and handed a short list of five hungry and incapacitated politicians who had submitted their interests for the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning Docket under the drowning leadership of Dier Tong Ngor and Governor of Central Bank.

What made His Excellency cry was the fact that James Deng Wal and Barnaba Marial Benjamin has forged into……,” partly reads the caption.

On running a Google reverse image search on the picture, Google lenses returned many results showing that the picture has been used before. The first time it was used was in 2018 by 

South Sudan in Focus.

AFTABOSS a website used the same image in 2018 with a title that ran as the 13 theories of political crisis in South Sudan and in 2021 it was used by Ramciel Tip-toe-Top, with a heading Facts about the president of South Sudan, H.E SALVA KIIR MAYARDIT. 

The same image was used by Akuot Chol on Getty Images. Meanwhile the Photos of H.E President Salva Kiir taken when he was arriving yesterday from his tour shows otherwise as seen in the official page Office of the president -Republic of South sudan.

Conclusion:

Given the evidence above collected by 211 check. This image of the president was not taken yesterday when he arrived Juba. He was not crying either as portrayed by the writer. This was an old picture which dates back to 2018.

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