A Facebook post featuring an image claiming to show the conflict in Moyale, Ethiopia, in October 2026, has been found to be PARTLY FALSE. The post, written in Afaan Oromo, reads in part, “The Borana Oromo people need urgent help. An intense war launched against the Oromo people has escalated and continued today. This conflict, which initially began in Moyale town, has now spread to the districts of East and West Borana zones.”
In October 2026, a dispute over the display of the Somali regional state flag in Moyale, a border city administered by both the Oromia and Somali regions, triggered fighting that spread across seven districts, causing deaths, injuries, and property destruction. According to reports, the clashes spread to several locations in the Borana zones, including Arero and Wachile districts, and resulted in hundreds of Ethiopians fleeing into Kenya.
However, a Google reverse image search determined that the photo does not depict the 2026 conflict in Moyale. Instead, the image was published by News of Bahrain alongside the caption, “Satellite imagery shows burned-out buildings at Amiet Market in the disputed Abyei region on 20 October 2026.” The image was also published on another website on 21 October 2026.
The disputed Abyei region is located between Sudan and South Sudan. The image shows burnt-out buildings at Amiet Market, which was the result of a drone strike that killed at least 53 people, according to local officials. PesaCheck, a fact-checking organisation, has verified the image and confirmed that it does not show the conflict in Moyale, Ethiopia.
PesaCheck is part of an ongoing series of fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms. By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction.
The fact-check was written by a PesaCheck fact-checker based in Ethiopia and edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Mary Mutisya and chief copy editor Stephen Ndegwa. The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck’s managing editor Doreen Wainainah. PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative.
PesaCheck was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein and is being incubated by Code for Africa. The organisation seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals.
Key points
- The image does not depict the 2026 conflict in Moyale, Ethiopia, but rather shows burnt-out buildings at Amiet Market in the disputed Abyei region on the Sudan-South Sudan border.
- A dispute over the display of the Somali regional state flag in Moyale triggered fighting that spread across seven districts, causing deaths, injuries, and property destruction.
- PesaCheck is a fact-checking organisation that partners with Facebook and other social media platforms to sort fact from fiction.
