The image was taken in Malawi during a funeral procession for the late Malawian vice president Saulos Chilima.
This post on Facebook by Zambian Post with an image claiming to show huge crowds welcoming former president Edgar Chagwa Lungu (ECL) in Ndola, Copperbelt is false.
The post, shared on June 16, 2024, reads: “HOW Former President ECL was received in Ndola today by residents.”
It was accompanied by a photo showing a huge crowd of people lined-up on both sides of a road.
However, a Google Reverse Search of the photo showed that the image was not taken in Zambia, Instead, the image was of a funeral motorcade in Malawi as seen here.
From the results, it is clear that the photo shared by Zambian Post was cropped at the bottom to hide the police escort vehicle and Malawian flags on the vehicle which was part of the funeral procession carrying the body of the late vice president of Malawi.
The image was also shared by another Malawi-based Facebook page ‘Malawi Data’ on June 16 2024.
Further, a reverse search of the billboard visible in the photo was done and the search results brought up an Instagram post by GOTv Malawi bearing an image with the same wording as on the billboard.
With this result, we further browsed the GOTv Malawi Instagram account to determine if they at any time posted a photo similar to the billboard. The photo was indeed found.
With these searches, it is clear that the photo was taken in Malawi and not Zambia.
This fact-check was produced by Bloggers of Zambia, under the African Fact-Checking Incubator programme, with support from PesaCheck, Code for Africa’s fact-checking initiative, and the African Fact-Checking Alliance(AFCA).
