FALSE: This image is not of Kenya police vehicle heading to Haiti

The Star fact-checker has estblished that the claim is misleading

In Summary
  • The security operation is aimed at guarding critical infrastructure such as airports, ports, schools, hospitals and key traffic intersections.
  • Kenya has pledged to deploy at least 1,000 police officers to Haiti by January 2024 with several other nations expected to offer other resources.

This Facebook post containing an image supposedly of a Kenyan police patrol vehicle being ferried on a boat to Haiti is FALSE.

“Kenya police heading to Haiti,” reads the post accompanying the image.

The image was shared after the United Nations Security Council approved a request from the Haitian government to deploy a multinational security support operation to the country to combat violent gangs.

The security operation is aimed at guarding critical infrastructure such as airports, ports, schools, hospitals and key traffic intersections.

Kenya has pledged to deploy at least 1,000 police officers to Haiti by January 2024 with several other nations expected to offer other resources.

A reverse image search located a similar image in a Facebook post shared on 31 January 2022 by Kenyans.co.ke. The post however doesn’t indicate where the photo was taken.

The news platform also posted the image on X (formerly Twitter) on the same day indicating that it was taken in Lamu County.

Another social media user posted the image in September 2020 with a description that it was captured in Lamu.

Going by the available evidence, the star fact-checker established that the image is old and was taken in Lamu and not in Haiti as claimed.

The image having been taken a long time ago, preceded Kenya’s mission to Haiti, which was yet to commence by the time of publishing this article.

Additionally, the Kenyan National Assembly was yet to approve the matter.

This fact check was published by The Star Factcheck desk with technical support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck newsdesk, through the African Fact-Checking Alliance (AFCA).

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