A tweet posted by Wish FM on March 23, 2023 as archived Here contains text beginning with the words “Nairobi:#FLOODS“, attaching two images; one of a private car submerged in water, and the other of a crowd surrounding a flowing stream of water. The tweet further indicates that a 12-year-old girl was reportedly swept away by floods in Nairobi.
Background
Parts of Kenya have been experiencing heavy rainfall recently. The Kenya Meteorological Department forecast rainfall from March 21, 2023 to March 27, 2023, in addition to moderate to heavy rains, as well as isolated storms in the Highlands East and West of the Rift Valley, the Lake Victoria Basin, the South and Central Rift Valley, the South-eastern lowlands, Northwestern and Northeastern Kenya.
Verification
Piga Firimbi found that images contained in the tweet by Wish FM are not from recent floods.
A Google reverse image search, reveals that the image of a car submerged in water is actually from April 2016. According to an article published by the Citizen Digital news website on April 1, 2016, the image shows the effect of floods in Nairobi’s South C area. This is further backed by another article on the Flood List website, where the same image was published, containing a caption that attributes a tweet from April 2016. See screengrab below;
The second image as shared on the Wish FM tweet is also from 2016 according to a Google image reverse search. The search leads to an article published on the Nairobi News website on May 19, 2016. According to the article, the image shows a crowd in Nairobi’s Kangemi area after an incident where two pupils were reportedly swept away by floods.
As for the tweet’s text, which states that a 12-year-old was swept away by floods in Nairobi, Piga Firimbi found that this indeed happened recently, based on reports by Citizen TV here and here. According to the Citizen TV reports, the incident occurred on March 23, 2023 in Waruku area of Kangemi in Nairobi. The story states that the body of the Grade 6 girl, identified as Ashley Nyaboke was yet to be found after floods swept her away.
Verdict
Images used by Wish FM to supposedly show recent floods are MISLEADING.
This fact-check was produced by Africa Uncensored with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck, the International Fact-Checking Network, and the African Fact-Checking Alliance network.
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