Diane Abbott did not say an Iraqi migrant was found off the coast of a landlocked country

17 September 2019
What was claimed

Diane Abbott said an Iraqi migrant’s body was found off the coast of Luxembourg, a landlocked country.

Our verdict

Incorrect. Her original tweet about a body found off the coast of Belgium was edited to say this.

A Facebook post shared hundreds of times claims to show a tweet by Diane Abbott saying that an Iraqi migrant was found off the coast of Luxembourg, a landlocked country.

This is incorrect. The image of the tweet has been edited to say Luxembourg. The original correctly reported that an Iraqi migrant’s body was found off the coast of Belgium and linked to a Guardian article about this. The person was believed to have drowned while trying to cross from northern France to the UK, with currents carrying their body to Belgium. It is not unheard of for the bodies of migrants who attempt this crossing to be carried to other areas of Europe.

There are a couple of things which suggest the image of the tweet shared on Facebook isn’t quite what it seems—the top of the image uses Ms Abbott’s Twitter image and handle, but the bottom uses Facebook’s like and share buttons.

Secondly, this is the only tweet Ms Abbott ever seems to have written using that particular phrasing and she doesn’t seem to have deleted any tweets about Luxembourg either.

You can read more about spotting altered or fake images here.

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