A viral video circulating on WhatsApp shows a black man being beaten by some white men with sticks. The incident happened inside an airport where some travellers were also captured.
In the video, some men believed to be airport staff were seen wearing their uniforms with tags hanging around their necks. The men were seen holding sticks and attacking a black man. Shortly after beating him, the black man was carried away.
This viral video has been circulated widely with the caption “Morocco blocks a video on Facebook showing a BLACK PASSENGER IN TRANSIT savagely and violently beaten at the airport by a horde of airport agents and staff” Royal Air Morocco???!!! LIKE AN ANIMAL???????? and it’s Africa?! Impossible to share it on Facebook, it is circulating on WhatsApp (we must show this video to Africa, to the whole world) BOYCOTT FROM Royal Air Maroc. The company had few working planes and was overbooked. The passengers waited at the airport for 2 days. They then announced that only “non-black Africans” should board. When Black Africans protested, they were beaten and accused of threatening the police. A Senegalese passenger is beaten like an animal. WHERE ARE THE BLACK AFRICAN COMPANIES???!!!”
???????????? Morocco blocks a video on Facebook showing a BLACK PASSENGER IN TRANSIT savagely and violently beaten at the airport by a horde of airport agents and staff ” Royal Air Morocco ???!!! LIKE AN ANIMAL???????? and it’s Africa?! Impossible to share it on Facebook, it is circulating… pic.twitter.com/zMYFVgDZcR
— Mike Sonko (@MikeSonko) April 29, 2024
Thus, the commentary accompanying the video suggested that the event happened in Morroco and the attackers were staff of Air Maroc.
Fact-Check Ghana has verified the video and provides the facts below.
Explanation:
In the viral video, the inscription Allo Airport is boldly branded on the airport’s walls. A quick search on Google shows that Allo Airport is a transportation service in Tunisia’s capital, Tunis. This gives a clue that the incident might have happened in Tunisia.
Further checks on the internet revealed that, in 2022, it was reported widely in the media (here, here, and here) how some Tunisian authorities attacked some black African passengers at the Tunis-Cathage Airport in Tunis due to chaos caused by a flight delay.
It was reported that Tunisair had cancelled flights and did not have enough aeroplanes, causing many passengers to be stranded at the airport for days.
On July 08, 2022, Mirror, a UK news portal reporte=d that “people who were forced to stay behind at the airport, many of whom were Sub-Saharan African passengers, were callously beaten by Tunisian security forces for reportedly assaulting the police.”
It is the same video which went viral in 2022 that is being circulated as a fresh case of assault in Morocco’s airport(find post here).
When Fact-Check Ghana checked on social media, we found that the Moroccan Embassy in Kenya had commented on the viral video on April 30, 2024.
“The Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco would like to clarify that the events depicted in this video did not occur in Morocco, and the individuals portrayed are not affiliated with Moroccan police forces,” parts of the tweet said.
Therefore claims that the viral video of a man being assaulted at an airport in Morocco is false. It’s an old video from 2022 and did not happen in Morocco.
