Reshared more than 400 times, the post includes a video of nearly three minutes in length showing armed men slaughtering people in a trench.
Shehu claimed the slayings happened in Nigeria’s north-west Sokoto state and criticised President Bola Tinubu “and all his security chiefs” for their silence because “the incident happened in the North to Northerners, their sworn enemies”.
Claiming 150 people were shot to death, Shehu added all the victims belonged to the same community as the Emir of Gobir, Isah Bawa.
Bawa, a traditional ruler, was kidnapped after returning to Gawata in Sokoto from an event. Local media reported his death on August 21, 2024, three weeks after he was snatched (archived here). While in captivity, a video was posted on X showing a bloodied Bawa begging the government to pay ransom for his release.
People commenting on Shehu’s post appeared to believe his claim. One said: “This is sad.” Another wrote: “This is madness, callous and barbaric.”
AFP Fact Check previously debunked a post from Shehu after he repeated a false claim that Nigeria’s signing of the Samoa pact automatically legalised gay relationships in the West African country.
His claim about the massacre video having links to Sokoto state and the murder of Bawa is also false.
Burkinabe massacre
Using the InVID-WeVerify tool, we extracted keyframes from the clip and conducted reverse image searches.
The results led to an August 28, 2024, X post video by a news blog called “Clash Report” (archived here).
While much shorter in length than the version shared by Shehu, the clip depicts the same events, showing armed assailants chanting Allahu-Akbar – “God is great” – and gunning down dozens of people who appear to be civilians digging a trench.
There are various matching clues between the two videos, including a pair of trees not far from the trench. The sound of gunfire also continues unabated.
“Massive massacre in Burkina Faso by JNIM (al-Qaeda-aligned terror group),” reads the caption on the X post. “The group killed more than 400 villagers digging trenches. All the civilians could do was lie down on top of each other. They also shot at women who were collecting firewood nearby.”
To narrow down the location, AFP Fact Check searched for Facebook posts mentioning 400 people killed in Burkina Faso using the Meta Content Library.
The result led to seven posts from different pages — five published on August 31 and two published on August 26, 2024 — all naming the site of the massacre as the small town of Barsalogho in Burkina Faso (archived here and here).
Using Google Earth, AFP Fact Check looked at satellite imagery of Barsalogho. Zooming in reveals a faint impression on the ground resembling a semicircle running clockwise from the southwest of the town to the northeast (archived here).
Online searches led us to articles about the Burkina Faso massacre by several news outlets, including a report by independent investigative platform Bellingcat, which found that the impression in the ground shows defensive trenches dug by villagers in 2022 and 2023. Bellingcat’s investigation explains that the townsfolk were extending this fortification last month when the militants arrived and shot them (archived here).
Bellingcat determined the footage in Shehu’s post was filmed on “the eastern side of Barsalogho” at the coordinates 13.424360984746672, -1.022058233986216.
Reuters, which also published an investigationinto the massacre, identified the same location.
Meanwhile, Nigerian defence spokesman Edward Buba told local newspaper Punch the video was “propagated from the terrorist camp” and did not happen inside the country (archived here).
“It must be noted that the incident never took place in Nigeria. Rather, it sadly took place in a nearby African country faced with terrorism.”
Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso faces escalating violence from Al Qaeda-affiliated Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) and other militant groups, which target civilians and security forces.
This multi-front conflict has displaced thousands and destabilised large areas of the country.
Bellingcat reported that on the morning of August 24, 2024, residents in Barsalogho, forced by the Burkinabè army, were digging defensive trenches before JNIM shot them all to death.
While the UN said “around 200” people were killed, the Collectif Justice Pour Barsalogho (CJB), a collective formed by residents in the aftermath of the attack, said the death toll was “nearly 400” (archived here and here).
However, JNIM claimed it only attacked soldiers and militia members excavating trenches and killed nearly 300, describing all the victims as fighters, not civilians.
