Nigeria: No, Photos Showing Scarred Children Are Old, Unrelated to Nigeria's Oyo State School Abduction

No, photos showing scarred children are old, unrelated to Nigeria's Oyo state school abduction

IN SHORT: Social media posts falsely claim photos of scarred children show the students abducted in Oyo state, Nigeria, in May 2026. But the photos have been online since 2020 and are unrelated to the incident.

Warning: This fact-check links to disturbing images.

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In May 2026, armed men abducted students and ⁠teachers in Oriire local government, Ogbomoso in Oyo state, southwestern Nigeria.

One teacher was reportedly killed, an act condemned by president Bola Tinubu.

Against this backdrop, Instagram users shared photos they claimed showed the abducted students. The images show children with visible scars, which users say were caused by torture.

One post dated 22 May reads, in part: "On the 15th of May 2026, over 40 children and teachers were kidn#ppEd from a school in Oriire LG, Oyo state. These are the children ... b3@t3n up to induce pressure."

The same photos were found here and here, with the same claim.

But do the photos show students abducted in Oyo state? We checked.

No, old photos

A reverse image search found the photos were published online as early as 2020.

They were posted on Facebook on 8 June 2020. with claims they showed children beaten by their teachers in Diffa in the country of Niger, Nigeria's northern neighbour.

The post was written in Hausa. Machine-translated, it reads: "A teacher of Allo school has been arrested in Diffa state, Niger Republic, who tortures young children as you can see in the pictures below."

The same photos appeared in another post from the same period, encouraging parents not to abandon their kids. But Africa Check could not verify the origin or context of the photos.

However, the images predate the Oyo school abduction by some years and are unrelated to it.