On February 5, 2022, images of a military vehicle were going round the internet. Claims surrounding these images are that; this vehicle was demobilized in Nigeria’s Ebonyi State. This comes at a time when a soldier was reportedly killed at the boundary of Ebonyi and Enugu States.
Background
With such and similar insurgency attacks experienced in Nigeria, there have been a number of misleading images and videos shared on the internet.
In the past year, for instance, Piga Firimbi debunked quite a number of such posts. This video shared on September 14, 2021, claimed that Nigerian soldiers had set bandits on fire. Another, shared during the #June12Protest alleged that a baby had been burnt to death by Fulani herdsmen. Evidently, all these posts were misleading.
Verification
Running a check on these Armored Personnel Carriers (APC), they were destroyed in South Sudan. A reverse image search leads to a Russian website with information on military equipment in local conflicts. According to Lost Armor, this APC is listed under military machinery deployed in Juba. With registration number; 19474, this Streit Group Typhoon was uploaded on July 11, 2016.
In this article by Reuters, South Sudan was facing hostilities at the time. The violence broke out between the loyalties of President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, just as the country was preparing to celebrate five years of independence. These clashes were considered the fiercest yet. They forced over 2.5 million people to flee their homes and left half of South Sudan’s population struggling to put food on their table.
Verdict
As much as these images try to portray the instability in Nigeria, these Armored Personnel Carriers were NOT destroyed in Nigeria but Juba.
This story was produced by Africa Uncensored in partnership with Code for Africa with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie.
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