FALSE: Images Shared Were Not Taken From A School In Kenya

Social media has been flooded with posts about a “prom party”; (a formal party held for older secondary school students at the end of the school year). The celebrations took place over the weekend at Elite High School in Entebbe. Different students arrived in cars, and one particularly arrived in a helicopter that drew the most attention.

An X user, formerly Twitter, shared images and captioned them, “This is a normal visitation day at a certain school in Kenya.”

The post received over 78,000 views, 185 reposts, 169 comments, and 40 bookmarks as of May 6th, 2024.

Fact Check

Photo: Images posted by an X user with their frames indicated.

Using Google reverse search, we proved that the photo shared in frame one is not from Kenya. On June 13, 2023, this exact image was posted on the MD Helicopters Instagram page.

HeliOps Magazine, a civil helicopter publication, also shared a video of these aircrafts at the Great UK/Europe 500 Fly-In hosted in Britain, where MD Helicopters was part.

In addition to the above, several social media posts claimed this photo was taken from some Kenyan schools, but they have been debunked and found to be false.

The photo in frame two, however, was indeed taken from Kenya, not at a school but rather at a political rally by the Azimio la Umoja coalition, a Kenyan political alliance led by Raila Odinga, at Nyamaiya Stadium on July 1, 2022, where political leaders arrived in helicopters.

Verdict

False, the photos shared were not taken during a visitation day at a Kenyan school; rather, they were taken in various locations during events unrelated to a school visitation day.

Edited by Bella Twine

Reagan Kiyimba

2021 Africa Check Award-winning Fact-Checker, Media Challenge Initiative Fellow class of 2020, 2022 Code For Africa and International Fact-Checking Network Climate Change Fact-Checking Fellow, 360 Digital Sherlock, trained by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab in open-source intelligence.