Does Outlook India's photo show Ethiopia's drone attack on Eritrean troops?

What was claimed

On 9 October, Outlook India, a New Delhi news magazine, published “Ethiopia Launches Drone Attack Against Eritrean Troops” A. The standfirst reads: “Ethiopian forces launched drone attacks on the Eritrean troops who entered in the Tigray region.”

Under the headline is a large photo: armed men on a pickup truck with a mounted machine gun, a bullet-scarred building behind them, two women walking past in the foreground. Its caption reads “Representative Image Photo: AP/Nariman El-Mofty” A.

Where the photo comes from

The photo was taken in Yemen in 2018. The Associated Press caption reads: “In this Feb. 12, 2018, photo, women walk past Saudi-led coalition backed forces, leading the campaign to take over Hodeida, as they patrol Mocha, a port city on the Red Sea coast of Yemen” B.

The two images match in every detail: the women in the foreground, the pickup and its gun, the men on its bed, the damaged building with three round vents, the Arabic shop sign and the utility pole C. Outlook India’s own file is named “Yemen-War” A.

“Representative Image” tells readers the photo is not of the event itself. It does not tell them that it was taken eight years earlier, in another country, during another war. Placed under a headline about a drone attack, a photo of soldiers with a heavy machine gun beside a shell-damaged building reads as a picture of that conflict. Nothing in it shows Ethiopia, Eritrea, Tigray or a drone strike.

What the article says about Eritrean troops

The article credits Reuters, which cited the conflict monitor ACLED, for the drone strikes A. Reuters added: “Reuters could not independently verify the information” D. Outlook India left that sentence out.

Outlook India then states, in its own voice, that “military vehicles carrying soldiers were seen driving across Eritrea’s southern border into Tigray” and that “this was the first confirmed presence of Eritrean forces in northern Ethiopia” A. Reuters’ account of those sightings came from two residents of Adigrat, and Reuters wrote that they “would be the first confirmation” of Eritrean troops on Ethiopian soil E. Outlook India turned a conditional into a confirmation.

The article also places Adigrat “25 miles (40km)” from the border. Reuters gives the distance as “about 25 km (15 miles)” E.

The article reports Eritrea’s denial that it supports the rebels. It does not report that Eritrea’s information minister denied that Eritrean forces were in Adigrat at all E.

Our verdict

Misleading. The only image in the article is a 2018 photo of Saudi-backed forces in Yemen, presented under a headline about Ethiopian drone strikes on Eritrean troops with no indication of where or when it was taken. The text upgrades unverified witness accounts to a “confirmed presence” and drops Reuters’ statement that it could not verify the information. Readers are given a photo of the wrong war and a level of certainty its own source did not claim.