PARTLY FALSE: This image is not of homes in Mogadishu destroyed by Somali police forces
The United Nations Office in Mogadishu denied the claim.
A post on X (formerly Twitter) claiming that the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) received a security alert about possible attacks in Mogadishu in the coming days and warned its staff in August 2024 is FALSE.
The text accompanying the post reads, “The UN resident at Halane base in Mogadishu has issued a warning to its staff today, stating that they have received reports of potential terrorist acts that may occur in the coming days”.
The claim, which includes the UN logo, also names several places in the capital, including hotels and security checkpoints, as potential targets.
But is the image authentic?
The Federation of Somali Journalists (FESOJ) conducted a Google reverse image search and found that the photo has been online since 2022.
The image was published by the Norwegian Refugee Council on its website on 7 December 2022, in an article titled “Eviction in Mogadishu – November 7th to 10th 2022.”
Thousands of people displaced by climate shocks and conflict have arrived in large cities across the country. Most evictions occurred in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and its outskirts. According to the NRC eviction tracking dashboard, 188,186 people, the majority of whom are IDPs, were evicted from their settlements across Somalia in 2022.
The image in question is, however, does not depict the events of 28 July 2024.
Federation of Somali Journalists (FESOJ) has examined a post on X (formerly Twitter) with an image purportedly claiming to show that bulldozers demolished homes in Mogadishu’s ex Internal Ministry on 28 July 2024, and finds it to be PARTLY FALSE.
This fact-check was produced by Federation of Somali Journalists (FESOJ) under the African Fact-Checking Incubator programme, with support from PesaCheck, Code for Africa’s fact-checking initiative, and the African Fact-Checking Alliance(AFCA).
