An image shared on Mar 5, on a Facebook page that has over 29 thousand followers, claimed that TPLF moved a large number of troops marching towards the Eritrean border. The post was shared more than 33 times by the time this article was published.
However, HaqCheck fact-checked the claim and confirmed that the image below doesn’t show the TPLF army marching towards Eritrea.
Therefore, HaqCheck rated the post False.
Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) forces and the Federal Government of Ethiopia have been in an active war in northern Ethiopia since November 2020. At the end of June 2021, the federal government declared a sudden unilateral ceasefire and pulled out its troops from Mekelle, Tigray’s capital. TPLF forces started to advance southward to neighboring Amhara and Afar regions.
A fresh counteroffensive led by PM Abiy Ahmed from the frontlines was launched and freed areas that were under TPLF’s control.
Recently, fights between forces loyal to TPLF and Afar regional armed forces were reported in some districts of the Afar region. There were also social media allegations that Eritrean soldiers were backing Afar regional armed forces.
In relation to this situation, the post came out on Facebook claiming to show that TPLF moving a large number of troops closer to the Eritrean border.
HaqCheck interrogated the image used to support the claim and found out that it is an old picture posted on Aug 3, 2019, on the Eritrean Press Facebook page.
Eritrean Press used the picture on its page entitled, “Sawa showed its hardware”, a news report of a military parade in Sawa, Eritrea, on August 01, 2019. President Isaias Afwerki was in attendance during the celebration of the Silver Jubilee Anniversary of Sawa, Eritrea’s major military training center, a military parade featuring tanks and helicopters.
Therefore, HaqCheck confirmed that the image used to support the claim is old and rated it FALSE.
