These images on Twitter purportedly of diplomats leaving Kenya in July 2023 are FALSE.
The tweet accompanying the images reads: “Breaking News; Happening now at JKIA. Diplomats leaving Kenya in such a hurry & in short notice. Tic tac tic tac tic tac!! I repeat, I am not a Prophet But,,,,,, (sic).”
The pictures are of people boarding Kenya Airways aircraft. The hub of the Kenyan national carrier is Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA).
One of the images has also been shared here with the same claim.
While the tweet does not explicitly state the reason for the supposed exit of diplomats, it was shared on 16 July 2023, two days after Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya coalition leader Raila Odinga announced three-day anti-government protests to be held consecutively in different parts of the country. This follows two earlier protests on 7 July and 12 July 2023 against the high cost of living.
On 11 July 2023, the United States Embassy in Kenya issued a demonstration alert to its citizens in light of the 12 July demonstrations.
But are the images of diplomats leaving the country? We checked.
Google reverse image searches for the first and second images accompanying the tweet show that they are not recent.
The first image was used on this website post dated April 2014, while the second picture was used as the thumbnail image on this video dated November 2019.
Similarly, Bing searches here and here bring up the images we are fact-checking, which have been online before July 2023.
PesaCheck has reviewed two images on Twitter purportedly of diplomats leaving Kenya in July 2023 and found them to be FALSE.
