Since August, Côte d’Ivoire has been plagued by a wave of verbal and physical attacks fueled by social networks, targeting homosexual or transgender people. Several videos published in early September show scenes of citizen mobilization with captions calling for violence and make people believe that mass demonstrations or lynchings are underway in Abidjan. But be careful, these videos have nothing to do with this dangerous homophobic campaign.
The wave of hatred began on social media at the beginning of August, following rumours denouncing a case of pedocriminality which allegedly involved a homosexual person.
Since then, several LGBT+ activists in Ivory Coast have expressed their concern after a series of “homophobic attacks“verbal and physical attacks fueled by social networks, which target homosexual or transgender people.
“Since the beginning of August, around thirty physical homophobic attacks have been recorded” by the LGBT+ Social Movement of Côte d’Ivoire, which brings together different associations, according to Brice Donald Dibahi, founder of the NGO Gromo, one of the most active in the community in the country.
Calls to attack gay people have multiplied online, some in a veiled manner, others openly calling for them to be attacked.
In Ivory Coast – where the law does not criminalize homosexuality, unlike in many African countries – there is “There has always been homophobia, whether on the streets or on social media, but I have never seen this kind of uprising.“, worried the activist during an interview with AFP at the beginning of September.
Several publications have also called for a march in Abidjan against the “woubis“, a word born in Ivory Coast and which the LGBT+ community first used to refer to itself before it became pejorative.
A disinformation campaign
Several videos showing scenes of citizen mobilization with messages calling for violence against homosexual people make it appear that mass demonstrations or even lynchings are underway in Abidjan. But beware, these dangerous publications, which seek to fuel violence against the LGBT+ community, use videos taken out of context.
In this first video published more than 1,200 times since September 1, hundreds of protesters, some holding clubs, march under the surveillance of men in uniform. The caption of the publication claims that this is a march organized in Ivory Coast against the LGBT+ community.
We notice in the video that the uniform worn by the men does not correspond to that of the Ivorian military, police or gendarmes. In addition, the writing in English on the posters around the street rather suggests an English-speaking country. This is also confirmed by the comments left under the original video first shared on Tik Tok. They mention Nigeria. A journalist in the AFP office in Nigeria confirms that this video was filmed in his country, probably during the recent demonstrations against the government.
He confirms that “The uniform of the armed officers is that of the Nigerian police“. “The protesters are speaking in Hausa and can be heard chanting “Bamayi” which means “we are done with this” and “karya’ne” which means “these are all lies”. These two phrases are popular protest chants in northern Nigeria during recent anti-government demonstrations.
This second video shows a crowd of people gathering in a ditch, and a crowd around them watching and shouting “catch him” or “they caught him.
A reverse image search allows us to discover that this is an operation to capture a crocodile by the populations of Yopougon, a working-class district of Abidjan. The video is not recent and it appeared on Facebook during the month of June 2024 when floods and landslides linked to heavy rains took place in the Ivorian economic capital.
Several videos of the same event, but with different angles, were published in June on the internet and notably on Facebook. The same men capturing the crocodile, and identifiable by their clothing (like the man in the blue and yellow t-shirt, or the one wearing a red cap) are also present in the viral video that we are trying to verify.
During the recent torrential rains in Abidjan, several crocodiles of different sizes were found in sewers or gutters.
This third video, which is equally viral and also published at the beginning of September, shows a crowd running towards men in uniform who are retreating towards parked vehicles.
This is actually a tense clash between the people of the Abobo Anador neighborhood and the Ivorian police during an eviction operation (archived here). Thanks to a reverse image search, AFP Factuel was able to find this same video shared by different Facebook pages and accounts from mid-August 2024.
Abobo, the most populated district of Abidjan, is home to a space selling spare parts and garages known as Casse d’Abobo. The place has become unsanitary and plagued by significant delinquency and is in the sights of the Ivorian authorities. The demolition operations of the stores and garages have led to stone throwing and tear gas being fired, as can be seen in the video.
In Ivory Coast, homosexuality is not illegal. However, members of the LGBT+ community face stigma.
At the end of 2021, the issue of homosexuality had emerged in the public debate after heated exchanges in the National Assembly. It had finally adopted an article of the penal code which no longer mentioned “sexual orientation” as discrimination, contrary to the initial draft.
On the African continent, homosexuality is criminalized in about thirty countries and some have recently toughened their laws, such as Burkina Faso, Ghana and Uganda. Ivory Coast is often considered one of the most liberal countries in West Africa in terms of morals.
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