FALSE: Recycled Images Falsely Claimed to Show Janet Museveni’s Body Returned To Uganda

CLAIM:

A TikTok video uploaded by the account @ohoo.uganda..256 claims that Uganda’s First Lady, Janet Kataaha Museveni, has died and that her body has finally been returned to Uganda. The video displays Luganda captions reading “Kyaddaaki returns to land in Uganda Janet Kataaha Museveni“ (translated as “Finally, Janet Kataaha Museveni returns to Uganda”) and ends with the caption “RIP Janet Kataaha M7.”

The video uses images showing a coffin being offloaded from an aircraft while suggesting that they depict the return of the First Lady’s remains.

Within four days of being uploaded, the video had attracted more than 18,800 likes, 1,072 comments, and 1,648 bookmarks, potentially exposing thousands of users to the false claim.

FINDINGS:

To verify the claim, the Debunk Information Verifier, a tool used to search and verify claims, was queried using the phrase “RIP Janet Museveni.”

The search returned multiple reports indicating that Janet Kataaha Museveni is not deceased. The results included public statements by President Yoweri Museveni dismissing the rumours, as well as reports from independent fact-checking organisations confirming that there is no official evidence to support claims of her death.

According to the retrieved information, President Museveni publicly stated that “Mama Janet is not dead” and criticised individuals spreading false information about his wife’s alleged death.

The search results further indicated that organisations including Africa Check and Debunk Media Initiative have previously investigated similar claims and found them to be false. The reports note that the misinformation has been fuelled by manipulated videos, misleading social media posts and misinterpretations of statements by public officials.

To establish the origin of the images used in the TikTok video, a Google Reverse Image Search was conducted.

The reverse image search traced the photographs to a New Vision article published on May 26, 2026, titled “Body of CID chief Magambo’s son arrives for burial.” The article shows the same images of a coffin being unloaded from an aircraft.

The New Vision report identifies the deceased as Timothy Muganzi Magambo, the son of Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) Director Maj. Tom Magambo, and not Janet Kataaha Museveni.

This demonstrates that the TikTok creator reused genuine photographs from an unrelated funeral and falsely presented them as evidence of the First Lady’s death.

No official statement from State House Uganda, the Office of the President, or any credible local or international news organisation announcing the death of Janet Kataaha Museveni was found during the verification process.

Taken together, the available evidence shows that the images used in the TikTok video are unrelated to Janet Kataaha Museveni and that there is no credible evidence supporting the claim that she has died.

METHODOLOGY:

To verify the claim, we used the Debunk Information Verifier, a tool used to search and verify claims, to trace for any credible reports concerning the claim and none was found.

We also conducted a Google Reverse Image Search on the images appearing in the TikTok video to establish their original source. The results were compared with the images published by New Vision, confirming that they originated from an unrelated funeral involving the son of CID Director Maj. Tom Magambo.

Additional checks were conducted across official government communication channels to determine whether any announcement had been made regarding the alleged death of the First Lady and no such announcement was made.

VERDICT:

False. The claim that Janet Kataaha Museveni‘s body has been returned to Uganda is not supported by any credible evidence. Reverse image searches show that the images used in the TikTok video were taken from a May 2026 New Vision report covering the arrival of the body of CID Director Maj. Tom Magambo‘s son for burial. Furthermore, official statements and multiple fact-checking reports confirm that Janet Kataaha Museveni is alive, making the TikTok video’s claim false and based on recycled, unrelated images.