Photos show attack on Nigerian church in 2022, not Christmas bloodshed in 2023

A spate of deadly attacks by armed gangs on villages in north-central Nigeria in December 2023 has fuelled false claims online, including a recent social media post that asserted two photos showed the aftermath of the violence. But the claim is false: the photos are old. They were taken in the wake of an attack on a church in the country’s southwest back in June 2022.

“New photos from within a church where at Christmas Christians were massacred in the name of Allah (sic),” reads a post shared on X and dated December 26, 2023.

Shared by a British account, the post has been reposted more than 17,000 times. It features two photos — one of a church altar with debris on the floor, while the other shows blood on the tiles.

A similar claim using the same photos was shared by another X account.

Plateau attacks

At least 198 people were killed when armed gangs attacked several villages in Plateau state in north-central Nigeria from December 23-26, 2023 (archived here).

The region has been plagued by religious and ethnic tensions for many years.

The attacks displaced nearly 20,000 people in about 20 villages, most of them women and children (archived here).

UN human rights chief Volker Turk urged the Nigerian government to “investigate this incident promptly, thoroughly and independently, consistent with international human rights law, and to hold those responsible to account in fair trials”.

However, the claim that the photos depict the attacks in Plateau state is false.

Ondo attack

Using reverse image searches, AFP Fact Check found that the photos have been online since 2022.

They were included in a report by the American news agency Associated Press (AP) on June 5, 2022 (archived here).

The photos are credited to AP photographer Rahaman A. Yusuf and show the aftermath of an attack on the St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo state, southwest Nigeria.

A keyword search for “St Francis Catholic Church Owo Ondo” in AP’s photo archives led to more images taken by Yusuf at the scene.

A screenshot of the 2022 church attack pictures as seen in AP’s photo archives

At the time, other international news outlets republished AP’s photo of the altar, including Voice of America and Sky News (archived here and here).

AFP had reported that at least 40 people were killed in the attack that Nigerian authorities said was carried out by an Islamic State-affiliated terror group (archived here).