The message includes a 47-second video showing captured Ethiopian troops walking in single file.
The Facebook pages that published the claim regularly share stories about Fano.
Armed conflicts
The Ethiopian army is fighting rebels in both Oromia and Amhara – the country’s two most populous regions.
The Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), a rebel force (archived here) operating in the Oromia region, took up arms in 2018, accusing the Ethiopian government of failing to commit to a genuine democratic transition during the early period of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. .
Meanwhile, Fano, a militia group (archived here) in the Amhara region, was one of the key allies of Abiy’s government during the two years of the Tigray War that ended in November 2022. The militia group turned against the government in July 2023 . following the decision to disarm all regional forces.
On May 15, 2024, US Ambassador to Ethiopia Ervin Massinga called (archived here) for a “transparent transitional justice process” to address reports of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions, sexual violence and other abuses in various parts of the country.
The Ethiopian government criticized the ambassador’s speech, saying it was “ill-advised and contained uninformed claims.”
In early May, local media (archived here) presented images showing government forces captured during recent fighting in North Shewa in Amhara.
However, the video shared on Facebook does not show any government soldiers captured by Fano in the Amhara region.
OLA fighters
AFP Fact Check used the video verification tool InVID-WeVerify to perform reverse image searches on key frames from the video.
The search results led us to a slightly longer version of the footage (archived here) that was shared on Facebook on April 4, 2024.
The original video lasts one minute and ten seconds and is captioned “Captured soldiers of the Ethiopian government.”
The Facebook account where the images were originally published regularly shares stories about OLA and its activities in the Oromia region.
Oromia National Media (ONM), an online media outlet affiliated with the OLA, reported on the same date – April 4, 2024 – that the rebels had reportedly launched an attack on government forces in the southwestern Shoa zone in Oromia, killing and capturing them committed. numerous government forces.
Closer examination of the original footage reveals that the first twenty seconds were deleted before being shared in the misleading Facebook posts.
In this deleted section, an armed fighter with dreadlocks can be seen guarding the men wearing combat uniforms of the Ethiopian Armed Forces.
Dreadlocks are the typical hairstyle of Oromo rebels. In addition, the man is wearing a sign depicting OLA fighters: a red and green piece of fabric – the colors of the OLA flag – over his camouflage print uniform.
The original footage also includes background music praising the OLA struggle in Afaan Oromoo. This song is omitted from the edited footage.
