IN SHORT: Images of a crashed police helicopter have been online for at least three years, and claims that the crash happened in Marsabit county are false.
An image has been circulating on Facebook with the claim that it shows a police helicopter that crashed in Kenya's Marsabit county.
The county is located in the north of Kenya, 543 kilometres from the capital Nairobi.
The image shows a helicopter with the word "police" on its nose, which appears to have crashed in the bush.
“Breaking News A chopper carrying 15 officers crash in Marsabit County,” one post reads.
A similar post claimed that 10 of its occupants had died, while the rest were seriously injured. This image has also been published here.
But does the image really show a chopper crash in Marsabit county? We checked.
Old photo, taken in 2020
There is no record of such a report in any of Marsabit county's credible news outlets in 2023, as would be expected with such a high-profile accident.
A Google reverse image search found that the photo first appeared online in June 2020 on Kenyan news sites and outlets.
The photo is of a police helicopter that crash-landed in Meru county on 13 June 2020. Meru is located in eastern Kenya, 277 kilometres from Nairobi.
On board were six security officers on a peacekeeping mission to Moyale, in Marsabit county, to broker a ceasefire between warring communities.
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