Back to Africa Check

Photo of Somali man buried before stoned to death for adultery, not Christian convert

Warning: This report links to disturbing photos.

A photo posted on Facebook on 16 September 2020 shows a man buried in soil up to his chest while two other men shovel more soil around him.

Its caption has caused confusion. “This woman you are seeing here is a Muslem but got married to a Christian man,” it reads.

“The man was stoned to death while the newly Islamic Christian convert was buried alive. And the question is; ‘why is this barbaric happenings still going on in this modern and civilized society as us?’’”

Comments on the post point out that there is no woman in the photo, with some asking where and when the incident happened. 

We checked.



Photo and report from 2009


A Google reverse image search reveals that the photo has been in used different reports about men who were stoned to death for converting from Islam to Christianity. 

But the photo is almost 11 years old and has a different story.

A blog post published on 15 December 2009, which quotes the AFP global news agency, identifies the partially buried man as Mohamed Abukar Ibrahim, 48. He was stoned to death by Islamic militants in front of hundreds of locals in a village about 20 miles from Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu. He was accused of adultery. 

The photo shows the militants burying Ibrahim before he was killed. The blog post shows four other photos of the incident, attributed to the Associated Press. The New York Post also published the report with one of the photos, the same day. – Allwell Okpi

Republish our content for free

We believe that everyone needs the facts.

You can republish the text of this article free of charge, both online and in print. However, we ask that you pay attention to these simple guidelines. In a nutshell:

1. Do not include images, as in most cases we do not own the copyright.

2. Please do not edit the article.

3. Make sure you credit "Africa Check" in the byline and don't forget to mention that the article was originally published on africacheck.org.

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 guide

Africa 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.

Add new comment

Restricted HTML

  • Allowed HTML tags: <a href hreflang> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote cite> <code> <ul type> <ol start type> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <h2 id> <h3 id> <h4 id> <h5 id> <h6 id>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
limit: 600 characters

Want to keep reading our fact-checks?

We will never charge you for verified, reliable information. Help us keep it that way by supporting our work.

Become a newsletter subscriber

Support independent fact-checking in Africa.