A video purports to show panic-stricken travelers infected with the novel coronavirus at an airport in Senegal.
The clip features the logo of Senegalese news site Dakaractu. The caption reads “#Urgent_coronavirus”. The footage has also been shared here and here with similar claims., The video shows people lying on the ground coughing and shaking\xa0as firefighters rush to assist them. Later in the clip, a man lies shaking at the side of the road\xa0while others scream and run., Other posts claim the panicked scenes happened in Ethiopia., "Flight coming from Italy to Ethiopia. Everyone tested positive for corona," reads the caption on a Facebook post shared 180 times since March 22., AFP ran a reverse image search using the Invid-WeVerify video analysis tool., "This\xa0led us to an article dated November 2019 published on Senegalese news site Thiesinfo.com (in French), entitled “Exercise at AIBD Dakar airport, editors note: airport security in show of force ”.", According to this article, the scene\xa0shows a security exercise simulating a hostage-taking that mobilised airport personnel\xa0as well as the police and gendarmerie services., A further\xa0search\xa0with the words “Dakar airport hostage simulation”\xa0revealed\xa0the original video, posted on Dakaractu’s YouTube channel\xa0here., This video was uploaded on November 28, 2019 -- the month before the novel coronavirus was detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The footage begins with more than a minute of raw images of this simulation, which are identical to those featured in the misleading Facebook posts., Xavier Mary, the\xa0manager of\xa0the company in charge of operating\xa0the\xa0runway\xa0at Blaise-Diange Airport, said the\xa0“crisis management exercise” mobilised at least “a hundred actors”, according to the article., AFP has contacted the runway firm for comment but has not yet received a reply., There were more than 3,400 reported cases of coronavirus across Africa according to the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 30., , Copyright © AFP 2017-2020.  All rights reserved.  Users can access and consult this website and use the share features available for personal, private, and non-commercial purposes.  Any other use, in particular any reproduction, communication to the public or distribution of the content of this website, in whole or in part, for any other purpose and/or by any other means, without a specific licence agreement signed with AFP, is strictly prohibited.  The subject matter depicted or included via links within the Fact Checking content is provided to the extent necessary for correct understanding of the verification of the information concerned.  AFP has not obtained any rights from the authors or copyright owners of this third party content and shall incur no liability in this regard.  AFP and its logo are registered trademarks.
This video shows a security exercise simulating a hostage-taking at Dakar airport | AFP Fact Check