This Facebook post claims that Mt. Kenya residents are lined up in long queues to receive relief food. The post goes on to claim that this is supposedly happening “barely a month after UDA promised bountiful harvests…”
Background
Kenya is currently facing drought with a reported over 4 million people in at least 23 Counties facing starvation. This makes drought, besides the high cost of living, one of the challenges that the United Democratic Alliance government, led by President William Ruto, has to contend with.
To mitigate the problem of starvation induced by drought, Ruto’s government endeavored to distribute relief food to drought-stricken areas.
According to the National Drought Management Authority monthly drought updates, Mount Kenya Counties that are reeling from drought include Nyeri and Tharaka Nithi which are listed as being in the ‘alert drought phase’.
Verification
A reverse search of the image attached to the post shows that it was taken in South Africa. As reported here by Al-Jazeera, the image is of people affected by Coronavirus in South Africa lining up to receive food donations. This article by VOA cites the date of the image as May 20, 2022. While there is a video online of Gatundu North MP giving out packets of maize flour, this image is not the true depiction of that.
Verdict
The image in the post has been used out of context thus FALSE.
This fact-check was produced by Africa Uncensored with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck, African Fact Checking Alliance network and the United Nations Development Programme.
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