IN SHORT: A video of opposing groups clashing is not from recent protests against the government of Kenyan president William Ruto. It was filmed at least seven months ago.
Protesters took to the streets of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, and several other cities on 20 March 2023 in response to a call for mass action by opposition leader Raila Odinga.
Odinga has since been leading protests against the high cost of living and the results of the August 2022 general election, in which he lost the presidential vote to William Ruto, among other grievances.
But chaos, vandalism and clashes with the police have marred the protests.
A graphic video of two groups fighting began circulating on Facebook and Twitter the same day, claiming to show what happened at Jacaranda Grounds in Nairobi.
In the video, a member of one group is attacked and falls after a stone is thrown at him.
The text accompanying the video on one Twitter post reads: “Jacaranda kumechemka mbaya after Mureithi chose to engage peaceful protestors in exchange for a cheque later in the evening pale State house.”
This translates as: “Jacaranda is getting hot after Mureithi chose to engage peaceful protestors in exchange for a cheque later in the evening at State house.”
“Jacaranda grounds someone has just been killed,” reads another Facebook post. Jacaranda Grounds are public sports facilities located in Nairobi’s Embakasi East constituency.
Francis Mureithi lost the race for the constituency in the 9 August 2022 election. He was defeated by incumbent Paul Ongili, a key Odinga ally who is popularly known as Babu Owino.
The same video was posted on Twitter here, here and here.
But does this video show violence at Jacaranda Grounds during the 20 March protest? We checked.
Video taken in DR Congo, not Kenya
Using the InVID-WeVerify tool, Africa Check extracted key frames from the video.
A reverse image search of these reveals similar images from videos taken in August 2022.
We found a photo published in an article by a French online news website showing a clash that happened in Kinshasa after a football tournament in 2022. Kinshasa is the capital city of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
We then searched YouTube for footage of rival groups fighting during a football match in the DRC in August 2022, and found this clip of the same video.
The video caption reads: “Tournoi Lingwala Bomoko: Des kuluna se sont invités à la fête” which loosely translates as “Lingwala Bomoko Tournament: Kuluna invited to the party”.
Similar videos were also shared here, here and here with the same reports that the fight incident happened at Lingwala, a municipality in Lukunga district in northern Kinshasa.
The clip does not show rival groups fighting during protests against the high cost of living in Kenya in 2023, but a fight in the Democratic Republic of Congo during a football tournament in 2022.
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