A post shared in Ethiopia alleged that the US imposed new sanctions on Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government in November 2022 over human rights violations in parts of the country. As a result, it alleged, Ethiopian leaders would be barred from attending a December summit with US and African leaders in Washington DC. But the claims are false: the US State Department told AFP Fact Check that no fresh sanctions had been imposed on Ethiopia recently, nor have its leaders been blocked from attending the event.

The post was published on Facebook on November 28, 2022, and has been shared more than 200 times.

Screenshot showing the false post, taken on December 1, 2022

Written in Afaan Oromo, the text translates to: “US president Joe Biden has imposed new sanctions on Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government. Biden has also blocked Abiy’s administration from participating in the upcoming Africa-US international summit over human rights violations in Oromia and other regions in Ethiopia.”

Oromia is Ethiopia’s largest federal state and home to the Oromo, the country’s biggest ethnic group who have long complained of marginalisation.

Reports of fighting and massacres emerged in recent weeks in this region haunted by a long-running insurgency, even as a peace deal was struck to end a two-year conflict in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region.

Since the conflict erupted, the Tigray region has been cut off from the outside world, creating shortages of food, medicine, electricity, and fuel.

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