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  • 2019-03-02 (xsd:date)
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  • No, this video does not show a woman being killed by Cameroon troops (en)
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  • A post claiming to show a woman being killed by Cameroonian troops has been shared 1,200 times on Facebook since it was posted on February 24. The video, which shows a group of police officers using truncheons to beat a civilian, was in fact taken in Ivory Coast in 2016. A screenshot taken on March 1, 2019 shows the video posted on Facebook French Cameroun Soldiers killing a lady in Ambazonia, reads the caption . The two English-speaking regions of Cameroon, the Northwest and Southwest, are in the grip of a conflict between the army and anglophone separatists who want to create an independent state called Ambazonia. According to the International Crisis Group, almost 500 civilians have been killed in the conflict since late 2017. A reverse-image search using the internet tool Yandex reveals that a pro-separatist Twitter account had already posted the video back in March 2017. A screenshot taken on March 2, 2019 of a tweet which wrongly locates the beating in Cameroon And going further back to December 2016, the footage can be found on YouTube, captioned: New Genocide in Bamenda Cameroon. Bamenda is the capital of the anglophone Northwest region. A screenshot taken on March 2, 2019 shows a YouTube video wrongly locating the beating in Cameroon Another version of the footage, uploaded to YouTube on January 28, 2018, suggests that the video was taken in Ethiopia. Riven by ethnic tensions, the East African nation suffered a wave of anti-government protests between 2015 and early 2018, leading to mass arrests among opposition supporters. Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn then began releasing thousands of political prisoners in a bid to ease political tensions, a move which his successor Abiy Ahmed has pursued since taking over last year. A screenshot taken on March 2, 2019 shows a YouTube video wrongly locating the beating in Ethiopia And from Cameroon and Ethiopia to the Democratic Republic of Congo: a tweet posted in January 2019 claimed the scene took place in Lubumbashi, the southern mining hub of DR Congo which was rocked by violence during the country’s presidential election campaign late last year. Screenshot taken on February 26, 2019 shows a tweet which wrongly locates the beating in DR Congo The earliest version of the video we were able to find was uploaded to YouTube on October 29, 2016. The French caption says it shows police repression during a protest in Ivory Coast a day earlier. A screenshot taken on February 26, 2019 shows the first available version of the footage A YouTube search using the French key words protest march Ivory Coast October 28 2016 (Marche protestation Côte d'Ivoire 28 octobre 2016) revealed another video which was put online the day of the demonstration, showing the same scene shot from a slightly different angle. In this video, uploaded by the account Dnewstv, you can see a water cannon used by Ivorian police. Screenshot taken on February 26, 2019 of the footage on YouTube (DNewstv) Screenshot taken on February 26, 2019 of the footage on YouTube (DNewstv) A search of the national police force’s Facebook page confirms that this type of water cannon, bearing the same insignia, is used by police in Ivory Coast. Screenshot of the Ivorian police force's Facebook page, taken on February 26, 2019 In the red circles you can see the coat of arms used by the Ivorian national police, which matches that seen on the force’s Facebook page. Logo of the Ivory Coast police force, as seen on their Facebook page On the date given for the protest -- October 28, 2016 -- AFP reported that demonstrators had taken to the streets of Ivory Coast’s economic capital Abidjan to protest against a forthcoming referendum on constitutional changes. In another shot from the DNewsTV video on YouTube we can see a man in a red t-shirt and beige shorts who bears a strong resemblance to the figure seen being beaten by police officers. He is standing next to a signpost which points the way to two well-known Abidjan neghbourhoods, Plateau and Cocody. The Ivorian journalist who shot the footage, Ange Hermann Gnanih, confirmed that it was filmed on October 28, 2016. Screenshot, taken on February 27, 2019, shows street signs for Abidjan districts in the YouTube footage Screenshot taken on February 27, 2019 shows the footage on YouTube As for the person filmed being beaten, a search of AFP archives revealed a series of images taken by our photographer Issouf Sanogo during the protest. In one of them, you can see a man in a red t-shirt shaking a rattle, a traditional Ivorian musical instrument. We have pixellated his face in this screenshot to protect his identity. Screenshot of an image found on AFP Forum, taken on February 27, 2019 Zooming in on the DnewsTV footage, you can see the same rattle attached to the belt of the man who was beaten by police officers. A screenshot taken on February 27, 2019 shows a rattle visible in the YouTube footage It seems likely that these two images show the same man, though we are unable to say so with total certainty. What we can say is that the video was filmed in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, in October 2016 -- and not in Cameroon, Ethiopia or DR Congo. (en)
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