This viral video, according to AFP Fact Check, has no connection with “Anny Sardines”” nor with Nigeria: it is linked to a family drama that occurred at the end of October 2022 in Côte d’Ivoire.
Local Voices Liberia iVerify team researched a viral video with claim that those in the video are dead after eating a certain packaged sardines. The sardines is alleged to be “Anny Sardine”.
Our verification of the video show that the claim is false.
We reached this conclusion by first conducting multiple reverse image searches of the video to establish when and where did the video appear online. We found many other versions of the same video shared to different social media platforms.
Further Google search of the claim found a fact check Report written by AFP which states that there are multiple claims that the incident happened in Benni while others claimed that the incident happened in Democratic Republic of Congo.
However, according to the AFP Report, the video of the people believed to be dead was traced to the town of Koumassi in Côte d’Ivoire. The Report quotes a local journalist as saying that the poster of the viral video “are still surfing on false information that circulated at the end of 2022 about the sardine Anny in the DRC “.
Based on these facts reported by AFP, the message in the viral video that a family die after eating Anny sardine is false and out of context. The short video of people lying on the floor, according to AFP, is from an incident that happened in Cote d’Ivoire which is not link to the Anny sardine.
Local Voices Liberia, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme, has implemented the iVerify Liberia system with the objective of strengthening capacities to address threats to information integrity, especially in view of the upcoming 2023 elections, to ensure all Liberian citizens have access to credible, reliable and verified information, everywhere and at all times.
This initiative is funded by Irish Aid, Embassy of Sweden in Monrovia, European Union Delegation in Liberia and the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund. The donors have no say in the production of this fact check report.
The link to the so called AFP Fact-Check Report is not working. Meanwhile, I have checked the AFP website and cannot find the report you speak of in your article. Kindly update your link please. This publication is important to some of us.