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Kenyans protest George Floyd killing outside embassy in US? No, photo of demonstration after 2017 election

“Kenyans riot outside Kenya Embassy in Washington DC to protest against the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis DP,” reads the caption of a photo posted on Facebook.

The photo shows fire, smoke, blocked roads and dozens of people.

Protests have erupted across the United States after George Floyd, a black man, was killed in police custody in the city of Minneapolis on 25 May 2020. A white officer had pinned Floyd to the ground and kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes.

Was the photo taken outside the Kenyan embassy in Washington, the US capital, during the protests?



Protests after Kenya’s 2017 election


Using a reverse image search, we discovered that the photo is almost three years old. It is available in the Adobe Stock image collection, credited to Reuters, with the caption: “Demonstrators set barricades on fire in Kisumu, Kenya August 9, 2017.”

We found the photo on Reuters Pictures with the identical caption. It is credited to Baz Ratner, a Nairobi-based Reuters photographer.

After current president Uhuru Kenyatta was declared the winner of Kenya’s 2017 general election, opposition leader Raila Odinga claimed the election had been compromised. 

The photo shows people protesting the election result in Kisumu, a city on the coast of Lake Victoria northwest of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. It was not taken in the US in 2020. – Dancan Bwire




 

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