A viral tweet by “We Yone Newspaper” alleges that the Headquarters of the main opposition party — All People’s Congress (APC), has been attacked by armed military men who fired multiple tear gas and ammunition into the party’s office.
Findings
DUBAWA visited the APC headquarters at Old Railway Line, Brookfields, Freetown, at around 18:00 GMT to verify the tweet made by the referenced online newspaper. The researcher saw a swirl of smoke billowing from the APC office. Also, eye-witnesses at the scene, including a journalist who had gone to the APC office to cover a press conference convened by the party’s Executive members, told DUBAWA that the security forces fired tear gas to disperse a crowd of over-enthusiastic supporters of the APC who had assembled at the party office. The supporters were jubilating over what they believed to be an election victory by their leader, Dr Samura Kamara.
The journalist further told DUBAWA whilst they were in the office, they heard the sound of gunshots fired from outside but could not tell if they were live ammunition.
DUBAWA also observed a Facebook live by the former Mayor of Freetown, Yvonne Aki-Sawyer, which captured parts of the incident at the APC office, as seen here and here. The videos were captioned “Tear gas fired into APC party office.”
VERDICT: Partly True. This is because it is confirmed that tear gas canisters were fired into the building of the main opposition party – APC. Although gunshot sounds were heard, DUBAWA cannot confirm whether live ammunition was fired.
