IN SHORT: A video circulating on social media shows a foiled Islamic militant attack on a military unit in northern Burkina Faso in 2022. The incident did not take place in Nigeria, as claimed on Facebook.
The Burkina Faso army has killed several armed Fulani bandits and terrorists crossing into Nigeria, according to Facebook posts from February 2024.
The posts include a video showing several bodies lying on the ground, with motorcycles and assault rifles nearby.
One post reads, in part: “Burkina Faso killed scores of heavily armed Fulani bandits and terrorists crossing over to Nigeria for jihad … this is what we are expecting Nigeria military to be doing. kill them and let the whole world see it.”
The Fulani are a widely dispersed group of mainly Muslim cattle herders scattered across West Africa.
In Nigeria, the term “Fulani bandits” refers to criminal groups wreaking havoc in the northern part of the country. These groups are often involved in various criminal activities, including cattle rustling, kidnapping for ransom, armed robbery and sometimes inter-communal violence.
The same claim can be found here, here, here, here and here, and on Instagram here, with over 7,000 views.
But does the video show Fulani bandits killed by the Burkina Faso army as they tried to cross into Nigeria? We checked.
Army foiled ‘jihadist attack’ in Burkina Faso
Geographically, Nigeria does not share a border with Burkina Faso. So the claim that the Burkina Faso army would have killed “terrorists crossing over the Nigeria” is unlikely to be true.
Using Invid, a video verification tool, Africa Check found the same video in an article on the website of TV5 Monde Afrique, a French media organisation.
The 22 May 2022 article is headlined “Burkina Faso : l’armée repousse une attaque djihadiste”, which is machine-translated from French as “Burkina Faso: Army repels jihadist attack”.
According to the article, the army had foiled an attack by jihadists on a military detachment in the north of the country on 21 May. The video was also posted on the news channel’s YouTube account.
Jihadists are people who advocate for Islam and sometimes believe in the use of violence, including terrorism, to spread Islam. This is opposed by many other Muslims.
Africa Check also found a YouTube video from 2022 on a page with a caption written in French. It translates to: “Bourzanga attack: the results in pictures.” Bourzanga is a town in northern Burkina Faso.
The video shows an incident that took place in Burkina Faso in 2022, not in Nigeria and not in 2024. It is important to fact-check claims of security threats, as misinformation on security issues can cause public panic.
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