IN SHORT: Photos of a young woman’s corpse are circulating on social media, with the claim they show an “unknown body” found at the Liberian president’s residence. But this is untrue.
Warning: This report fact-checks distressing photos.
Photos of a young woman’s lifeless body lying in a gutter have been circulating on social media since late March 2024 with the claim she was found behind the house of Liberian president Joseph Boakai.
Liberia is a country on the West African coast. Boakai, of the United Party, was elected in November 2023. He narrowly beat out the incumbent, former football star George Weah of the Congress for Democratic Change, who had been in power since 2018. Boakai took office in January 2024.
The photos’ caption also claims that Boakai’s new government is “killing innocent Liberians” as his party did while it was in opposition. It reads in full:
unknown body found behind the president of Liberia house in rehab! BOAKAI and his recircle criminals in government are not just looting and stealing but also killing innocent Liberians like they did doing their opposition life!! The Disaster and Calamity Liberians brought doing the election is finally paying back to their own suffering and bad governance!!!
The claim can also be seen here, here, here and here.
But do the photos really show an “unknown body” found behind Boakai’s residence in 2024?
Twenty-year-old student murdered in Enugu, Nigeria
Reverse image searches of the photos reveal that they’ve been online since March 2021, long before Boakai’s presidency. The photos are from Nigeria, not Liberia.
They first appeared on social media on 29 March of that year with appeals to identify the woman’s body. She had been found in the town of Enugu, the capital of Nigeria’s southeastern state of the same name.
Later news reports identified the woman by name. She was a 20-year-old student at Enugu’s Institute of Management Technology.
Within days, the Enugu State Police Command announced that two suspects had been arrested for the woman’s murder.
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