Have “Eritrean forces since invaded Ethiopian territory”, as Africanews reported?

What was claimed

On 11 October, Africanews published a report headlined “Eritrea urges United Nations to intervene in standoff with Ethiopia”, credited to “Rédaction Africanews with AFP and AP” A. A video version appeared on its YouTube channel the same day B.

After quotes from residents of Adigrat, the report says: “Rebels launched attacks against federal forces last month in the northern Ethiopian region. Eritrean forces have since invaded Ethiopian territory.” A

The second sentence has no source. It is not “Ethiopia says”, “witnesses said” or “according to reports”. It is Africanews telling its readers what happened.

What the same article says

Higher up, the report handles the same claim differently. It says Addis Ababa “accused Asmara of launching an ‘all-out invasion’”, and that “Asmara has denied the incursion” A. Two paragraphs after the unattributed sentence, it says again that Asmara “has denied an incursion by its troops”, calling the claim part of Ethiopia’s plan to justify a war A.

So the article reports an allegation and a denial, and then settles the dispute in its own voice in favour of the side making the allegation. A reader is told that Eritrea denies an invasion that, according to Africanews, has already happened.

What the record shows

We looked at what the news agencies Africanews credits, and others, had reported by 11 October.

• Ethiopia’s government told the UN Security Council that Eritrean forces had advanced up to 60 km into Tigray C. That is an allegation by a party to the dispute. We examined it in our fact check of Ethiopia’s letter to the UN.
• Eritrea’s information minister denied Eritrean forces were in Adigrat and said Ethiopia was fabricating allegations D.
• Witnesses told Reuters they saw soldiers they identified as Eritrean in Adigrat. Reuters said it could not verify their accounts G.
• The Associated Press, one of the two agencies Africanews credits, reported a government-allied militia commander and the conflict monitor ACLED saying Eritrean forces had entered Tigray, and said it could not verify either E.
• AFP, the other, cited an unnamed foreign security source estimating 5,000 to 8,000 Eritrean soldiers in Tigray F.

Since then, ACLED has gone further. An entry dated 12 October says the Eritrean army had been “stationed along the Zalambessa-Fatsi line” and has withdrawn from Tigray. It names no source H.

These accounts are consistent with one another, and they may prove right. But the agencies reporting them did not treat them as established. On 13 October, two days after Africanews wrote that Eritrea “invaded”, Reuters was still writing that “witnesses and a conflict monitor said” Eritrean troops had crossed, and that Asmara denies it I.

None of these sources describes an invasion of Ethiopian territory. The strongest of them describe Eritrean troops in parts of eastern Tigray near the border. “Invaded Ethiopian territory” is a larger claim, and the word was Ethiopia’s.

Our verdict

Unsupported. Africanews stated as fact, in its own voice, that Eritrean forces had invaded Ethiopia. The sources it credits attributed the claim and said they could not verify it, and the same article reports Eritrea’s denial twice. Turning an allegation into a fact is the kind of change we see repeatedly in coverage of this conflict, as with Channel 4 News asking why Eritrea is “invading” Ethiopia. If independent evidence emerges, we will review this fact check.