Claim: A viral image shared on TikTok and Facebook shows a satellite image claiming that the Gambian military camp crossed the Senegalese border.
Verdict: False. Findings show that the shared image is AI-generated and doesn’t depict the actual location of the military camp.
Full Text
A TikTok user, @m.s19636, shared a satellite image, claiming that the Gambian military camp in Bullock is stretching into Senegalese territory.
The post (archived here) reads, “Satellite images are showing that the military barracks that was in Bullock has other parts in the Senegalese territory.”
As of July 18, 2026, the post had accumulated 49,200 views, 1,556 likes, 158 shares, and 59 comments.
While many questioned the image’s authenticity in the comments, others believed it was true.
For example, Kebbeh Gorel called the map fake. “This is a fake line; there were borders before satellite or GPS,” he wrote in the comment section.
Lamin Ceesay, another user, wrote, “I am not convinced, because looking at the map border line is not straight, rather a snake-like shape, so stop confusing people.”
However, another user, @Romeo, countered, saying, “This is what the Senegalese government registered in Google Maps; the same thing is happening in Kammamudu. That village is registered in Senegal, not in Gambia. If you do certain map reading, it shows that you are in Senegal.”
The image has also appeared on Facebook here and here and on other TikTok pages, here and here.
This claim follows an ongoing border dispute between the Gambia and Senegal. On July 16, 2026, the Senegalese forces reportedly demolished more than 200 metres of perimeter fencing around a Gambian military post in Bulok. DUBAWA conducted this fact check to set the record straight.
Verification
DUBAWA compared the viral image with the military’s post location at Bullock, Gambia, using Google Earth. The imagery we found did not match the imagery circulated online.
The viral image shows a compound labelled “military camp,” split by a line marked “Gambia” on the left side and “Senegal” on the right. This implied that half the camp sits in each country.
However, Google Earth’s search results showed that the compound sits entirely within Gambian territory, with no label identifying it as a military installation.
We ran the TikTok image through two AI verification tools. DeepAI, an artificial intelligence manipulation-detection tool, indicated a 97% probability that the image was AI-generated. Likewise, ZeroGPT also indicated a 97% AI probability on the image.
Conclusion
Our findings show that the image is not from Google Earth and was fabricated using AI tools. The claim is, therefore, false.
This report was produced under the 2026 Kwame Karikari Fact-checking and OSINT Fellowship, co-hosted by DUBAWA and the Digital Technology, Artificial Intelligence, and Information Disorder Analysis Centre (DAIDAC), with support from the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID).