A Russian telegram channel Срочно, Сейчас (Urgent,Now), with more than 189,862 subscribers, claimed in a post on December 28, 2023 that Nigerian soldiers escorted gunmen to the murder of several people on Christmas eve in Plateau State.
The platform had posted a series of images and videos entitled, “In Nigeria, terrorists killed 198 Christians on Christmas Eve.”
Part of the channel’s report about the post read, “The police and army are accused of supporting the massacre as they did not respond to the massacre for about 12 hours. About 300 wounded are also known. The latest video shows soldiers allegedly escorting Islamists to a massacre.”
The post shared by the channel had three videos and four photos.
Background
Gunmen had on Sunday 24th December, 2023 stormed Ndun, Ngyong, Murfet, Makundary, Tamiso, Chiang, Tahore, Gawarba, Dares, Meyenga, Darwat and Butura Kampani villages in the Barkin Ladi, Mangu and Bokkos areas of Plateau State, burning houses, shooting residents and killing over 150 people.
Confirming the incident, Governor of Plateau State Governor, Mr Caleb Mutfwang, in an interview on Channels television on Tuesday, December 26, 2023 said, “This has indeed been a very gory Christmas for us. We have had to celebrate with a heavy heart. Just when people had finished preparing for Christmas celebrations, unprovoked attacks were unleashed on several of our communities.
“As I’m talking to you, in Mangun Local Government alone, we buried at least 15 people. So far this morning in the Bokkos Local Government, we were counting not less than 100 corpses. I have yet to take stock of that of Barki-Ladi. Most of the communities affected in Barki-Ladi share a border with the Bokkos Local Government.”
He also revealed that terrorists had taken over schools in the local government area, displacing residents of no fewer than 64 towns in the state.
The killing garnered international attention as it was met with criticism and condemnation.
Consequently, the Russian Telegram channel used the opportunity to provide misleading information to its audience.
Apart from the Russian Telegram channel, some Nigerian and foreign X (formerly known as Twitter) accounts and websites were also found to be amplifying some of the contents found on channel.
Findings
Claim 1: Video of corpses with surviving children
The first video shows the bodies of multiple people, both male, female and children gruesomely killed lying on ground with blood from gunshots.
The first, which is part of the multimedia contents shared on the channel and posted on the site, lasted for 1:36 seconds. The graphically amplified video shows the alleged bodies of several men, women and children in Plateau State who had been brutally murdered.
Two other children survivors of the attack were also shown on camera. One of the babies cried as a conversation went on. This happened while someone, who wore military boots, filmed the incident.
Screenshots from the video were used to conduct a Google reverse image search, which revealed that the video had been published and linked to the killing in Plateau State by a number of accounts on the microblogging platform, X, as well as websites such as CountingStars Nova24TV, a Slovenian news website, and The Geller Report, a far-right website based in the United States.
Screenshot from Nova 24 website
Both websites have used the video in their reporting of the Plateau killing.
The Geller Report had embedded the video from a post on X by Eva Vlaardingerbroek, (@EvaVlaar) a Dutch commentator and activist, who had picked the video from a pro-Biafra account on X, TheBiafra_Child NwaChineke (De General) (@TheBiafraChild).
According to the Google reverse image search, the video was uploaded online on December 16, 2023, by Salah Mohammed Ahmed (@SalahMo73628462), an X account. It featured a French description, which was translated into English by Google Translate, indicating that the video originated from Burkina Faso rather than Nigeria.
The post read in part, “The killing was carried out by the Burkina Faso, accompanied by VDP and under advice from the Malian junta and Wagner’s partners.”
The post also disclosed that the killing had happened in Djibo, a town in northern Burkina Faso and the capital city of Soum Province.
Djibo is reportedly one of the terror hotspots for Islamist terrorists in Burkina Faso and a hazardous region of the country.
READ ALSO: https://www.economypost.ng/featured/banks-interest-rates-are-impoverishing-nigerians/2023/12/18/
A few victims of the killing in the video were also visible in pictures uploaded by the X account Sahel OSINT (@Sahelosint) on December 17, 2023.
@Sahelosint post had read in part, “Burkina’s army and allied militias killed hundreds of civilians (mainly women & children) in AQ/JNIM dominated villages in their counteroffensive around Djibo.”
The exact date of the killing is unknown as a Google search for a reported attack in Djibo in December turned up nothing. However, on November 28, 2023, France24 had reported that fighters from the Islamist group, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM), attacked a military base, residences, and camps of internally displaced persons in the Sahel region of Djibo, killing at least 40 civilians and injuring over 42 others.
A response to @TheBiafraChild post by an X account, @Mayla_blj, also confirmed the killing of civilians in a statement released by the Islamist group on December 14, 2023 and blamed the Burkina Faso government. But a Telegram Channel, African Intel on December 19, 2023 published a report in which the Burkina Faso government, through the Minister for Communication, accused jihadists of carrying out a massacre against civilians in Djibo and denied being the perpetrator as alleged by what he termed “communication campaign fuelled by the terrorists.”
Claim 2: Islamist gunmen parade through a Nigerian village after Plateau massacre
The second video, which the Telegram channel claimed to be from Plateau State, was also shared on December 27, 2023, by Remix News & Views on X, a platform that purports to provide news and commentary from Central Europe, specifically the Visegrád countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia).
The caption of the video on Remix News & Views post read, “WATCH: Islamist gunmen parade through a Nigerian village after massacring 140 men, women, and children with firearms and machetes in the predominantly Christian Plateau State. Here, the terrorists can be heard victoriously shouting “Allahu Akbar,” but a Reuters report suggested the escalating conflict was primarily a result of “climate change and expanding agriculture.”
Other footages showed looted churches with blood-stained floors as Christians were butchered while celebrating Christmas with their families.
Remix News & Views and the Russian Telegram Channel both claimed that the video was shot in Plateau State.
A security analyst and counter-insurgency specialist in the Lake Chad region, Zagazola Makama, posted the video on X on December 26, 2023, according to a screenshot search of the footage conducted with the inVID video verifier.
In the post, he clarified that the video showed members of the terrorist organisation – Boko Haram – storming the ISWAP (another terror group) position at Gaizuwa, Sambisa Forest, after the ISWAP had taken off.
He also said that Gaizuwa, a former Boko Haram stronghold a few kilometers from Bama Local Government Area in Borno State, had been taken over by ISWAP following the group’s defeat by Alhaji Air Hajja Fusambe’s Boko Haram faction.
Claim 3: Soldiers escorting bandits to Plateau State
The third video on the channel shows people in military uniforms amidst several gun-wielding bandits on motorbikes.
The channel had used that to push the narrative that Nigerian soldiers had escorted gunmen to carry out the killing in Plateau State.
A screenshot from the Russian Telegram uploaded video
Using the InVid video verifier, it was found that the video was not connected to the fatal occurrence in Plateau State and had been available online since September 18, 2023.
In a report published on September 20, 2023, Daily Trust confirmed the source of the video to be from a truce between the Nigerian government and bandits in Katsina State.
Also, a security expert and Journalist @Eedris4Peace, with some knowledge of bandits’ operations in Katsina, had in an earlier post on X on September 16, 2023, shared pictures from the truce. He had identified the meeting to have taken place at Fankama village in Faskari Local Government Area in Katsina State.
Old images used to depict massacre
The first image on the post is a collage of six different pictures of a woman and children and another picture showing five people wrapped in white clothes being prepared for burial.
A Google reverse image search of the collage pictures showed that the collage image was from a blog named The Famous Naija, which reported the killing of a 32-year-old Adamawa woman named Harira Jubril.
Jibril and her four children were murdered in 2022 by gunmen who were allegedly affiliated with the Eastern Security Network, an armed separatist organisation that was held accountable for the majority of killings in southeastern Nigeria.
The second image shows a photo collage of the interior of a church and a floor stained with blood.
The collage photos were also found circulating on X among foreigners with massive following.
A United-Kingdom based @RonEnglish, Nile Gardiner, who claimed to be a foreign policy analyst based in Washington DC, as well as Israelis Cherryl E and Hananya Naftali also posted the collage photos.
When the collage images were subjected to Google Reverse Image searches, the results showed that the photos had been online since 2022.
The inside of Owo, Ondo State’s St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, which was attacked by gunmen in June 2022, is shown in the collage photos. These reports from AP News and Al Jazeera contained an earlier version of the images.
The pictures were taken inside the Owo church on June 5, 2022, after the gunmen attacked worshippers who had assembled for a weekly service and were credited to Associated Press photographer, Rahaman A. Yusuf.
The third picture shows a scene of an ongoing mass burial.
READ ALSO: https://www.economypost.ng/featured/knocks-on-wike-as-kidnappers-run-rings-around-abuja/2023/11/22/
When the picture was subjected to a Google Reverse Image search, it was found that the picture had been online since 2021.
The photo shows the mass burial of victims of a bandit attack in Southern Kaduna, Kaduna State in September 2021.
The picture was credited to Linda Ikeji’s blog and came from Facebook user, Sallie Peace Daniel, and also found on the X account of @N2davicO in October 2021.
Conclusion
The claim published by the Russian Telegram channel alleging that Nigerian soldiers escorted gunmen to the killing in Plateau State is false. Also, the images and videos posted on the channel are not related to the recent massacre in Plateau State. Therefore, they are misleading.
Shehu Olayinka is a data journalist, researcher specialising in investigating disinformation and digital manipulation.
, with more than 189,862 subscribers, claimed in a post on December 28, 2023 that){kind=link}