FACT-CHECK: Viral WhatsApp post of US Embassy in Ghana on fire is False

Claim: American Embassy in Ghana  set ablaze by irate Ghanaians 

Source: WhatsApp

Verdict: False

Researched by Alfa Shaban 

GhanaFact has surfaced a screenshot of a TikTok video on WhatsApp claiming that the United States Embassy in Ghana’s capital, Accra, had been set ablaze by angry Ghanaians on January 30, 2025.

The WhatsApp message tagged as “Forwarded Many Times” has an accompanying narrative that the attack was in response to alleged comments by US President Donald Trump and that Embassy staff refused to vacate the premises despite prior warnings. 

The message had three photos of burning multi-story buildings and the official portrait of the US president with the caption, “ Breaking news; The American Embassy in Ghana is on fire after angry Ghanaians set it ablaze.”

Screenshot of the viral WhatsApp post

GhanaFact also found that the claim was shared by an X user with the name @Celebrityblo on January 30, 2025, at 6:23 AM.

GhanaFact investigated the post on three levels. 

1. Whether or not the US Embassy had been attacked
2. Source of the pictures used and 
3. Identity of the account spreading the claim.

Fact-check

GhanaFact research of traditional and social media platforms showed that there have been no such attacks on the US Embassy in Cantonments, a highly secured suburb of the capital, Accra. 

Also, checks on the US Embassy website and social media did not return any information about the supposed burning of their embassy.

A resident in the area spoke to GhanaFact on Friday, January 31, 2025, at 6:00 am and debunked that there had been no such attacks at the premises. “It is totally untrue, it is business as usual all around the Embassy’s entrances and exits,” the source reiterated.

An analysis of the pictures in the post showed that the buildings did not match the known structure of the US Embassy building in Accra. The Embassy does not have multi-story buildings anywhere on the vast premises.

Post as shared on X

The team used Google Maps and Google Earth records to map out the land area of the Embassy. The positioning of the trees and streets at the Embassy premises in Accra did not match what was shared.

The US Embassy premises are captured in the yellow polygon

Note, the roads around the facility, include Fifth Link Road, Fourth Circular Road, Old Fort Road, Third Circular Close and the Second Circular Road.

In a series of photos below, we use Google Earth to take shots of different sides of the facility to buttress the point that the US Embassy in Accra does not have very high-story facilities on its premises.

Collage showing roads around the US Embassy building

Investigation of Social Media Accounts 

Concerning the account spreading the claim, GhanaFact observed that the operator of the X account is the same operator for the TikTok account, Celebrity Blogger, where the video version of the claim had a high level of engagement.  

On Facebook, GhanaFact traced the video to a page “Igbo Times Magazine,” with about 47,000 followers. This page per our checks, was a cloned handle of a page with the same name that had previously been flagged for posting disinformation content by Dubawa (here, here).

We dug further into the transparency section of the page and found that it was set up in 2022 and had been set up in the name of a former Vice Presidential candidate of the Labour Party – Dr Yusuf Datti Ahmed. It later metamorphosed into his fan page and then to Igbo Times Magazine.

Page history of The Igbo Times Magazine page

Below are the engagement statistics of the posts on TikTok and Facebook. It is worth noting that the post on X had zero engagement.

Verdict

From the above, the viral claim on WhatsApp about the US Embassy in Accra being set ablaze is False.