“Witnesses say” went missing: how 27 headlines turned unverified reports of Eritrean troops in Tigray into fact

Between 7 and 12 October, we collected 27 headlines from news organisations around the world about reports that Eritrean troops had entered Ethiopia’s Tigray region. We recorded the exact wording of each headline, where and when it appeared, and the sources the article beneath it relied on.

Here is what we found:

• All three global news agencies, Reuters, AFP and the Associated Press, first presented the crossing as a claim: “witnesses say”, “official, residents”, “government-allied commander says”. Reuters and AP said they could not verify it. AFP attributed it to an anonymous official and residents.
• On 7 October, six of the seven headlines we found attributed the claim. On 8 October, ten of thirteen stated it as fact. Across the whole period, 15 of 27 headlines stated it as fact.
• The evidence underneath did not grow to match. The only new material on 8 October was a secondhand claim from a commander of a militia fighting alongside the Ethiopian army, and a conflict monitor that did not say where its information came from.
• The attribution was removed in three ways: by other outlets rewriting agency headlines, by an agency rewriting its own, and by later articles treating the crossing as settled background.
• Apart from one conflict-monitor analyst relaying unnamed sources, every source named on the record is on one side of the war: two commanders of a pro-government militia and two Ethiopian government ministers. Every other source is anonymous.
• Not one of the 27 articles says its outlet verified that Eritrean troops crossed. On 10 October, Reuters did verify a video, of Ethiopian-allied militia in Adigrat.

This is how a claim that no one had verified became, within a day, what much of the world was told was fact.

The headlines

We list them in the order they appeared. “Attributed” means the headline tells the reader who is making the claim. “Stated as fact” means it does not.

Date	Outlet	Headline	Presents it as
7 Oct	Reuters, via Al Jazeera	Witnesses spot Eritrean troops inside northern Ethiopia as tensions flare	Attributed
7 Oct	Reuters, via The Star	Eritrean troops drive through northern Ethiopian town, witnesses say	Attributed
7 Oct	BBC News	Eritrean troops move deep into Ethiopia’s Tigray region, residents tell BBC	Attributed
7 Oct	AFP, via eNCA	Eritrean troops deploy in Ethiopia’s Tigray region: official, residents	Attributed
7 Oct	AFP, via Africanews	Eritrean troops deploy in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, witnesses say	Attributed
7 Oct	Bloomberg	Ethiopia Accuses Eritrea of Troop Incursion, Calls for Immediate Withdrawal	Attributed
7 Oct	AFP, via Oman Observer	Eritrean troops deploy in Ethiopia’s Tigray region	Stated as fact
8 Oct	AFP, via The Express Tribune	Eritrean troops deployed in Ethiopia’s Tigray region	Stated as fact
8 Oct	AP, via ABC News (06:43 GMT)	Eritrean soldiers entered northern Ethiopian towns, government-allied commander says	Attributed
8 Oct	NBC News (10:54 GMT)	Eritrean troops cross into northern Ethiopia as conflict escalates	Stated as fact
8 Oct	AP, rewritten (by 12:20 GMT)	Eritrean forces seen entering towns in Ethiopia’s Tigray region after crossing border	Stated as fact
8 Oct	AFP, via France 24	Ethiopia drones hit Eritrean troops in Tigray	Stated as fact
8 Oct	Reuters, via Internazionale	Drones target Eritrean troops inside Ethiopia, conflict monitor says	Attributed
8 Oct	Africanews	Ethiopian drones strike Eritrean forces near Adigrat	Stated as fact
8 Oct	Euronews	Ethiopian drones hit Eritrean forces accused of backing rebels in Tigray	Stated as fact
8 Oct	France 24 (video)	Eritrean troops reportedly enter Ethiopia’s Tigray region	Attributed
8 Oct	The National	Ethiopia and Eritrea edge closer to direct conflict as troops enter Tigray	Stated as fact
8 Oct	The Guardian	Ethiopia launches drone attack against Eritrean troops who crossed into Tigray	Stated as fact
8 Oct	Channel 4 News	Horn of Africa crisis: Why is Eritrea invading Ethiopia?	Stated as fact
8 Oct	African Business	Eritrean troops seen inside Ethiopia’s Tigray as conflict fears grow	Stated as fact
9 Oct	BBC News	Ethiopia warns Eritrea it will defend itself after troops cross border	Stated as fact
9 Oct	Al Jazeera	Ethiopia and Eritrea accuse one another of launching war	Attributed
9 Oct	Reuters, via TimesLIVE	Ethiopia says it must defend itself against Eritrea’s ‘all-out invasion’	Attributed
9 Oct	Outlook India	Ethiopia Launches Drone Attack Against Eritrean Troops	Stated as fact
10 Oct	Reuters, via Sight Magazine	Eritrea asks UN to intervene in standoff with Ethiopia	Does not say
10 Oct	Reuters, via Oman Observer	Ethiopia regains control of city after Eritrean incursion	Stated as fact
12 Oct	The New Humanitarian	Eritrean incursions raise fears of a wider regional war in Ethiopia	Stated as fact

What sat underneath

We read the articles beneath these headlines and listed every source they give for the presence of Eritrean troops. There are nine.

Anonymous people in Tigray

1. Two residents of Adigrat, speaking to Reuters on 7 October, who said they saw dozens of soldiers they identified as Eritrean by their off-white camouflage. Reuters said it could not verify their accounts.
2. Residents of Adigrat speaking to the BBC on 7 October. The BBC said it “has not yet been able to independently verify any of the reported troop movements”.
3. An unnamed local official, “multiple sources” and two eyewitnesses speaking to AFP on 7 October. AFP did not say it had verified their accounts.
4. “Local sources” who told The New Humanitarian on 12 October that Eritrean forces fought at Adi Hageray in northwestern Tigray.

Combatants on the Ethiopian government’s side

5. Gebreigziabher Beyene, a commander of the Tigray Peace Force, quoted by AFP on 7 October. The Tigray Peace Force is a militia fighting alongside the Ethiopian army.
6. Ermiyas Ababu, another Tigray Peace Force commander, quoted by AP on 8 October. He did not say he saw Eritrean troops himself. AP reported him “citing reports from his personnel”, and said it could not verify his account.
7. The Ethiopian government: communications minister Enatalem Melese, speaking to Bloomberg on 7 October, and foreign minister Gedion Timothewos, in a letter to the UN Security Council.

Sources that did not say where their information came from

8. ACLED, the conflict monitor. Its analyst told AP that unnamed sources identified Eritrean troops by uniforms, vehicles and number plates. AP said ACLED had not answered a question about the basis for its claims.
9. An unnamed “foreign security source” who gave AFP an estimate of 5,000 to 8,000 Eritrean soldiers on 9 October.

Apart from the ACLED analyst, who relayed sources he did not name, every source named on the record is either a commander in a militia allied with the Ethiopian army or an Ethiopian government minister. That does not make them wrong. It means that no one independent of the war has put their name to a first-hand account.

How the attribution disappeared

The words “witnesses say” did not disappear in one place. They were removed at least three different ways.

Other outlets rewrote agency headlines. AFP’s own headline on 7 October was “Eritrean troops deploy in Ethiopia’s Tigray region: official, residents”. By 9:05pm the same day, the Oman Observer had republished it as “Eritrean troops deploy in Ethiopia’s Tigray region”. The next day The Express Tribune ran it as “Eritrean troops deployed in Ethiopia’s Tigray region”. The AFP text underneath still attributes the claim to an official and residents. On 10 October Reuters headlined its story “Eritrea asks UN to intervene in standoff with Ethiopia”. The Oman Observer ran the same Reuters story as “Ethiopia regains control of city after Eritrean incursion”.

An agency rewrote its own headline. AP’s report from Mekelle was first published at 06:43 GMT on 8 October as “Eritrean soldiers entered northern Ethiopian towns, government-allied commander says”. By 12:20 GMT the headline read “Eritrean forces seen entering towns in Ethiopia’s Tigray region after crossing border”. The story beneath still said “The Associated Press could not independently verify either account”. NBC News, which ran the AP story at 10:54 GMT, used its own headline: “Eritrean troops cross into northern Ethiopia as conflict escalates”. We have published a separate fact check on these headlines.

Later reports treated it as background. By 10 October, Reuters’ own text referred to “The incursion by Eritrean troops, which Asmara has denied and Reuters could not independently verify”. That one sentence calls it “the incursion” and says Reuters could not verify it. By 12 October, The New Humanitarian’s analysis opened by stating that the conflict moved closer to a wider war “when Eritrean forces crossed the border, and Ethiopia hit back with two days of drone strikes”. Both are stated as fact. Ethiopia has not said it carried out any drone strikes.

What was verified

Reuters did verify one video during this period. On 10 October it reported that “a video shared on social media and verified by Reuters” showed members of a militia allied with the Ethiopian government walking in the streets of Adigrat.

In six days of coverage, we found no outlet saying it had verified any image or video of Eritrean troops in Ethiopia. The closest is the work of the fact-checking site Misbar, which on 10 October geolocated a video circulating as showing Eritrean forces to the main road through Idaga Hamus. Misbar found that a truck’s number plate resembled the design used on Eritrean commercial vehicles, but the number itself could not be read. That is real evidence that troops and vehicles were on that road. It does not establish whose they were.

The numbers

Two figures in this story have been widely repeated. Neither has an independent source.

60 km. Ethiopia told members of the Security Council that Eritrean troops had advanced up to 60 kilometres into Tigray. The furthest point named by any outlet or monitor in the reports we reviewed is Idaga Hamus. By our measurement it is about 42 km in a straight line from Zalambessa, the border town where ACLED says the troops crossed. Ethiopia did not say whether its 60 km figure is a distance by road or in a straight line, or name the place it refers to.

5,000 to 8,000 troops. This estimate comes from a single unnamed “foreign security source” quoted by AFP. AFP did not say which country the source is from or how the figure was reached.

The standard

Reuters, the BBC, AFP and The New Humanitarian each found their own witnesses, and their accounts broadly agree. Eritrea’s information minister has denied the troops were there, and in other statements has declined to address the specific reports.

What we have examined is what the evidence showed at the moment each headline was written. On 7 October, the agencies that reached the witnesses described what they had as unverified claims. A day later, with no verification added, most of the headlines we tracked had dropped that caveat.

Headlines are often all a reader sees, and in a war that both governments are trying to justify to the UN Security Council, how a claim is labelled matters.

How we did this

We searched for news reports published between 7 and 12 October 2026 about Eritrean troops in Ethiopia, in English, and included every headline from an international, national or major regional outlet that we could read in full. This is not every headline published. Republished copies of the same agency story are included where the republisher changed the headline. Publication times are taken from the pages’ own metadata, and all times are GMT. Distances are straight-line measurements between published coordinates.

We will update this analysis if any outlet independently verifies the presence of Eritrean troops, or if any of the headlines above are corrected.