“Suspected female Chinese with covid 19 stoned to death in Nyali Mombasa after she failed to go to hospital,” reads the headline of an article posted on a Kenyan Facebook group page.
The 18 March 2020 article claims supermarket staff noticed that the woman had symptoms of Covid-19, the coronavirus disease. It says her neighbours had already asked her to seek treatment. She refused, the article says, which “angered” the people of Nyali, who “stoned her to death”.
Nyali is a suburb in Mombasa, a city on Kenya’s southeastern Indian Ocean coastline.
The article and similar posts circulating on Facebook include a photo of a woman being carried into an ambulance.
Was the woman murdered for showing symptoms of Covid-19? We checked.
A Google reverse image search reveals that the photo was taken on 21 September 2013 by Associated Press journalist Sayyid Azim. It shows the terrorist attack on the Westgate mall in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. The attack left 67 people dead.
The photo was published in the Edmonton Journal, a Canadian newspaper, with the caption: “A woman’s body is removed from the car by the Kenya Red Cross outside the Westgate Mall, an upscale shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya Saturday Sept. 21 2013.”
There have also been no credible media reports of a woman killed in Kenya for showing symptoms of Covid-19.
The Chinese embassy has not made any statement that a Chinese citizen has been attacked. The story is false and the photo from another tragedy. – Grace Gichuhi
The 18 March 2020 article claims supermarket staff noticed that the woman had symptoms of Covid-19, the coronavirus disease. It says her neighbours had already asked her to seek treatment. She refused, the article says, which “angered” the people of Nyali, who “stoned her to death”.
Nyali is a suburb in Mombasa, a city on Kenya’s southeastern Indian Ocean coastline.
The article and similar posts circulating on Facebook include a photo of a woman being carried into an ambulance.
Was the woman murdered for showing symptoms of Covid-19? We checked.
Photo from Westgate terrorist attack in Nairobi
A Google reverse image search reveals that the photo was taken on 21 September 2013 by Associated Press journalist Sayyid Azim. It shows the terrorist attack on the Westgate mall in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. The attack left 67 people dead.
The photo was published in the Edmonton Journal, a Canadian newspaper, with the caption: “A woman’s body is removed from the car by the Kenya Red Cross outside the Westgate Mall, an upscale shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya Saturday Sept. 21 2013.”
There have also been no credible media reports of a woman killed in Kenya for showing symptoms of Covid-19.
The Chinese embassy has not made any statement that a Chinese citizen has been attacked. The story is false and the photo from another tragedy. – Grace Gichuhi
For publishers: what to do if your post is rated false
A fact-checker has rated your Facebook or Instagram post as “false”, “altered”, “partly false” or “missing context”. This could have serious consequences. What do you do?
Click on our guide for the steps you should follow.
Publishers guideAfrica Check teams up with Facebook
Africa Check is a partner in Meta's third-party fact-checking programme to help stop the spread of false information on social media.
The content we rate as “false” will be downgraded on Facebook and Instagram. This means fewer people will see it.
You can also help identify false information on Facebook. This guide explains how.
Further Reading
[email protected]: The challenges of working across Africa
Misinformation knows no borders and Africa Check often responds to similar false claims from country to country.
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