Claim: An Instagram user shared a video asserting that Nigerian Northern Christians are being tied and sold into slavery.
Verdict: Misleading! The video is old and unrelated to Nigeria. Reports from credible media organisations link it to Congo.
Full Text
An Instagram user, @Apostleamosngosha, shared a video (archived here) claiming that Christians are being massacred and some are being sold into slavery.
“This is what’s happening in Nigeria. Christians are being massacred, and many of them are being sold into slavery. Did you know Islam started slavery when they captured North Africa?” he wrote as the caption of the video.
In the video, men and women in a group could be seen walking in a file, with their hands tied at their backs, while writhing in pain. Men in unidentified uniforms, armed with guns, were seen escorting them along the muddy road.
As of June 28, 2026, the post had over 59 likes and 22 comments. The post also garnered thousands of likes and views on X and Facebook, and here.
An X user, @globalrevival91, supporting the claim, wrote, “This is what’s happening in Nigeria: Christians are being massacred, and many of them are sold into slavery. Did you know Islam started slavery when they captured North Africa?”
Another user, Prince Robinson, unsure about the claim, wrote: “Are police officers now kidnappers because I saw a police officer with a long gun in front of these innocent people?”
DUBAWA decided to verify the claim because it raised a sensitive security issue and due to conflicting comments.
Verification
DUBAWA ran a keyword search on the claim to see if we would find anything reported, but we found nothing related.
We conducted a reverse image search on keyframes from the video. Our searches led to earlier versions of the video posted in May 2026, several months before this claim falsely linked the incident to Nigeria.
We found a post by Kivumorningpost.cd (@KivuMorningPost) with the same video claiming it shows hundreds of civilians from South Kivu arrested in the Kunda region, in Ituri province, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
We used these new details to conduct further searches and found a Radio Okapi report published on May 14, 2026, in Congo.
We used Google Translate to review the report, which was published in French. Radio Okapi’s report noted that security sources said the civilians involved were mostly young people from South Kivu. Their presence in the area, which was deemed suspicious, reportedly drew the attention of security forces,
However, sources claimed that the individuals had gradually arrived in Kunda to work in agricultural and gold mining activities.
Conclusion
The video shared on social media has been taken out of its original context. The event happened in Congo in May 2026 and is totally unrelated to Nigeria or Nigerian Christians.