A Twitter account with more than 118,000 followers posted an image on Mar 15 captioned, “According to the information we recieved, Antonov planes carrying weapons entered Tigray region in Shire and Mekelle.” The post was shared as breaking news. By the time this article was published the tweet had more than one hundred retweets and four hundred reactions. Other twitter accounts also posted it with the same claim.
However, HaqCheck looked into the picture used to support the claim and rated it FALSE.
The war between TPLF and the federal government of Ethiopia has been ongoing for more than a year now. After the Ethiopian federal forces left Mekelle, Tigray’s capital, TPLF forces started to advance southward to neighboring Amhara and Afar regions.
TPLF stayed in control of several cities until the military offensives and counter-offensives led by prime minister Abiy Ahmed from the frontlines, which started on Nov 22, 2021. Most parts of both regions were liberated in a short period of time.
The post appeared on Twitter in light of this conflict scenario claiming to show that Antonov planes carrying weapons entered the Tigray region in Shire and Mekelle.
After examining the picture using reverse image search, Haqcheck confirmed that the photo was first posted on April 26, 2007 with a caption Antonov An-22A Antei - Aeroflot.
Therefore, HaqCheck inspected the image used to support the claim and rendered it False.
