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.

This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.

By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.

Have you spotted what you think is fake or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.

This fact-check was written by PesaCheck Fact-Checker Harriet Ogayo and edited by PesaCheck Senior Copy Editor Cédrick Irakoze and acting Chief Copy Editor Francis Mwaniki.

The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck Managing Editor Doreen Wainainah.

PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.

PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.