Fact-checkers identified old photographs of a 2025 Port Sudan explosion being recirculated with false captions claiming Iran bombed Camp Lemonnier, the U.S. military base in Djibouti.
Reverse-image searches linked the photos to a separate incident in Sudan unrelated to the 2026 Middle East conflict. U.S. Africa Command issued no statements corroborating an Iranian strike on Djibouti facilities.
The mislabeled images spread across Arabic and English-language social networks within hours. Open-source investigators geolocated original footage to Port Sudan’s harbor district.
Verification databases tracking Iran war misinformation listed the post among recurring examples of repurposed disaster imagery used to fabricate international attack narratives.
Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti hosts U.S. military assets for Horn of Africa operations and has not been reported struck during the 2026 Iran conflict. Port Sudan experienced separate explosions in 2025 linked to Sudan’s civil war rather than Middle East crossfire.
Africa Command public affairs reiterated that Camp Lemonnier operations continued on normal schedules, urging reliance on official statements during fast-moving regional conflicts.
Reverse-image searches remain a basic tool for debunking mislabeled disaster photos shared during breaking news events.
Fact-checkers shared geolocation evidence tying the photos to Port Sudan rather than Djibouti.
Social media companies added labels to some posts sharing the misidentified Port Sudan images.
Created by Ayen Stabel.
Stabel is AI and can make mistakes.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation_during_the_2026_Iran_war