These Photos Were Taken in Melilla, Not Ukraine
The Claim
These photos depict Africans with visible injuries trying to flee Ukraine.
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Emerging story
Social media users have circulated three pictures of black men with black injuries and claim they show evidence of injustice and mistreatment of Black people and Africans in Ukraine.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar has investigated the claim and found it to be misleading. These photos were from a refugee camp in Melilla, northern Morocco, and were not from Ukraine.
Using Google Image Reverse Search, it turned out that two photos were posted attached to an article on the “La Voix Du Nord” French regional news website on March 4, 2022. The article has reported on the arrival of African migrants in Melilla, northern Morocco.
A video report by the AFP reporting on the arrival of migrants at the European border in Melilla has featured the same black men sitting on the ground with visible injuries.
Description: A video by the AFP depicted the three men.
A similar man to the migrant who was already captured in the second picture wearing a blue jacket also appeared in the last photo. Getty Images has confirmed that the two photos were taken in the same context.
Description: The same man appeared in the two pictures.
Using Keywords on Google Search, our team confirmed that the three pictures were taken in Melilla, northern Morocco. The pictures were uploaded to Getty Images store on March 3, 2022, with a caption reading: “…injured migrant (L) after arriving with others at the Temporary Center for Immigrants and Asylum Seekers (CETI) in Melilla after jumping the border fence separating Spain's Melilla enclave from Morocco on March 2, 2022.”
