FALSE: Uganda did not deport 19 passengers from high-risk COVID-19 countries
The passengers on a KLM flight to Entebbe opted not to enter into quarantine, and instead returned to Amsterdam
A Facebook post claiming that 19 passengers from high-risk COVID-19 countries who had arrived at Entebbe Airport from Amsterdam were deported after exhibiting ‘extreme’ signs of flu and cough is FALSE.
The post states that the passengers arrived on a KLM flight which had landed at the airport, and that they exhibited ‘extreme signs’ of COVID-19 after several screenings, prompting authorities to deny them entry into the country.
The 19 passengers were apparently meant to be deported on the same aircraft they arrived in, but this would not be possible because the plane was grounded due to technical difficulties. It adds that the passengers had been booked into a hotel because they could not leave the country as their plane had been grounded.
While it is true that the passengers on the KLM flight opted not to enter into quarantine and chose to return to Amsterdam, and the plane itself had technical difficulties, the Facebook post makes a false connection between these two events, and also presents a false claim that passengers had shown ‘extreme’ flu-like symptoms, and were subsequently denied entry into Uganda.
Uganda’s Ministry of Health issued a statement on 7th March 2020 noting that any traveller to the East African nation from Category 1 countries — Italy, Iran, South Korea, France, China, Germany and Spain — would be subjected to self-quarantine for 14 days on arrival.
This order was issued when KLM flight 537 from Amsterdam to Entebbe via Kigali was still airborne, and the airline was directed by the Ugandan Ministry of Health to ask the passengers from the named countries if they would prefer to stay in quarantine for 14 days in Entebbe, but the airline indicated that most of the passengers opted to return to Amsterdam.
The Uganda Civil Aviation Authority issued a statement confirming that the KLM flight from Entebbe International Airport to Amsterdam had experienced a technical problem on March 7, 2020, and did not take off as planned. However, the aviation refuted the allegations that the failure to take off had anything to do with suspected cases of the novel coronavirus.
The plane was grounded from 7 to 9 February, when it was returned into service as data from flight tracking website Flightradar24 shows. The plane was flown back to Amsterdam, arriving on 9 March, and was put back into service, flying to Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., the next day.
In response to a query by PesaCheck, KLM confirmed that the passengers were not showing any symptoms of flu as claimed in the Facebook post, and that passengers from the countries identified by Ugandan authorities as being at risk for COVID-19 had been given the option to return or enter Uganda and stay in quarantine.
Passengers were not showing any symptoms. We [KLM], like other airlines, received a letter from the Uganda authorities in which they asked us to approach passengers from risk countries to choose between two options. Either to enter Uganda but stay in quarantine for 14 days or to fly back to Amsterdam with the same plane. Most of the passengers from the risk countries decided to go back to Amsterdam with our flight — Alice Fokkelman, KLM Media Relations
To date, Uganda has not registered any case of COVID-19.
PesaCheck has looked into a claim that 19 passengers o a KLM flight from Amsterdam to Entebbe via Kigali exhibited extreme signs of flu and cough after several screenings for COVID-19 and finds it to be FALSE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by Ugandan Fact-Checker Pius Enywaru and edited by PesaCheck Deputy Editor Ann Ngengere.
The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck Managing Editor Eric Mugendi.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is a joint initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with additional funding support from the International Budget Partnership (Kenya) and Twaweza, in partnership with a coalition of local media organisations, and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ).
