Photographs showing children with bruises, cuts and welts have been shared on social media with claims that they show pupils abducted during the May 2026 attack on schools in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State.
...s claim the injuries were inflicted on the children while they were in captivity. The images have since been used to push claims about the condition of the abducted pupils.
Findings
A reverse image search shows that the photographs are not from the Oyo school abduction.
The images had already appeared online in June 2020, almost six years before the attack in Oyo State.
Earlier reports by Nigerien media outlets and social media users identified the children as pupils of a Quranic school in Diffa, southeastern Niger. They were reportedly injured after being subjected to severe corporal punishment by their teacher.
Reports from Niger’s state-owned media also showed that authorities investigated the incident and arrested a Quranic teacher accused of assaulting the children.
The case later led to legal proceedings and raised concerns among regional authorities and religious leaders over the supervision of Quranic schools and the safety of pupils.
The same photographs were also published online by a Nigerien journalist in June 2020, further confirming that they existed years before the Oyo kidnapping.
There is no credible evidence linking the images to any of the children abducted in Oyo State.
Background
The misleading claim began spreading after pupils and school personnel were abducted during an attack on schools in the Ahoro-Esiele area of Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State on May 15, 2026.
The incident caused public concern, especially as official and community sources gave different figures on the number of victims.
As anxiety grew over the fate of the abductees, several false and misleading claims surfaced online. Some posts claimed that some of the children had died in captivity, while others shared the old photographs as supposed evidence of injuries sustained by the victims.
However, the Oyo State Police Command dismissed reports of any confirmed death among the abducted pupils. The command described the claims as false and warned that such reports could cause unnecessary panic while rescue operations were still ongoing.
Verdict: False
The photographs being shared as images of abducted Oyo schoolchildren are not connected to the May 2026 school kidnapping. The pictures were first published online in June 2020 in connection with a corporal punishment incident in Niger Republic. Since the images predate the Oyo abduction by several years, they cannot be authentic photographs of the kidnapped pupils.