Claim: A collage of photos shows Sudan’s Defence Minister Aqeed Ibrahim, comparing how he appeared during his time in power to his current impoverished state.
Fact: Sudan does not have any Defence Minister by the name of Aqeed Ibrahim. One of the photos going viral shows Lieutenant General Omar Zain al-Abdin, the head of Sudan’s military council’s political committee. Another two images are of an unidentified man, who was likely a victim of the 2019 drought in Kenya.
On 4 February 2025, a post on Facebook claimed to show photos of Sudan’s Defence Minister, a man allegedly called Aqeed Ibrahim. In the first photo, he is seen in uniform, likely addressing an audience as we see a few microphones in front of him.
IThe two photos at the bottom show an elderly, emaciated man in purple rags. The post claims these photos show the downfall of Sudan’s Defence Minister over time, comparing how he appeared during his time in power to his present-day impoverished condition. The post had the following caption in Urdu:
اس دنیا کی عارضی رنگینیان !
عقید ابراهیم 1995 کو سوڈان کا وزیر دفاع رہا ھے..
وقت بدلتا ہے اور کیسے بدلتا ہے……..زمینی خدا مت بنیں،وقت ہمیشہ ایک سا نہیں رہتا عقد ابراہیم جو کہ 1995 میں سوڈان کا وزیر دفاع رہا ہے مگر اب اس وزیر دفاع رہنے والے شخص کی یہ تصاویر سوشل میڈیا میں گردش کر رہی ہیں۔وقت بدلنے میں دیر نہیں لگتی وقت ہمیشہ ایک جیسا نہیں رہتا ۔اس لیئے کہتے ہیں عاجزی و انکساری اختیار کرو اور بڑے بول مت بولو ۔۔۔ وقت کی نزاکت کو سمجھیئے اور زمینی خدا فرعون کی طرح بننے کی کوشش مت کریں ۔
عوام پر اتنا بوجھ ڈالیے کہ جتنا اللہ کو حساب دے سکتے ہیں ۔
موجودہ حکومت کے لئے یہ نشانہ عبرت
According to Google Translate, this reads in English as follows:
“Temporary colors of this world!
Aqeed Ibrahim has been the Minister of Defense of Sudan since 1995..
Time changes and how it changes……..Don’t become an earthly god, time does not always remain the same. Aqeed Ibrahim, who was the Minister of Defense of Sudan in 1995, but now these pictures of this person who is the Minister of Defense are circulating on social media. Time does not take long to change, time does not always remain the same. That is why they say, be humble and modest and do not speak big words… Understand the fragility of time and do not try to become an earthly god like Pharaoh.
Put as much burden on the people as they can give an account to Allah.
This is a lesson for the current government”
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check initially conducted a reverse-image search of the photo which claims to show Sudan’s Defence Minister during his time in office. We found the earliest instance of the photo published in an article from 12 April 2019. Titled “Sudan Tells UN Transition to Civilian Rule Could Be Shortened”, the article includes the photo from the claim at the beginning, along with the following caption:
“The head of Sudan’s military council’s political committee, Lieutenant General Omar Zain al-Abdin”.
A Google search for “Lieutenant General Omar Zain al-Abdin”, led to a picture of Abdin on Getty Images from the same press conference on 12 April 2019. His facial features match those of the man in the claim. The caption of the image explains that the press conference was held a “day after Sudan’s army ousted the Arab-African country’s veteran president Omar al-Bashir”.
Since the post on Facebook claimed the photo was of Sudan’s Defence Minister by the name of Aqeed Ibhrahim, Soch Fact Check also ran a Google search for “Aqeed Ibrahim Sudan Defence Minister”. However, we could not find any person by the name of Aqeed Ibrahim associated with Sudan or its Defence Ministry.
We then conducted a reverse-image search of the photos of the elderly, emaciated man, and found that they date back to 19 March 2019, according to this news article from 2019. Titled “Sudan: the macabre false discovery”, the article talks about misinformation on African websites which claimed that a former Defence Minister of Sudan by the name of Colonel Ibrahim Chamsadine was found imprisoned under a mosque in Omdurman, Sudan, despite being declared dead in 2008. In this instance, the pictures of the man in a purple rag were falsely linked to Chamsadine.
However, the news article concluded that the pictures of the man in a purple rag had nothing to do with Colonel Chamsadine. In fact, they dated back to 2019, when a journalist from the BBC posted them on X (formerly Twitter) to illustrate the havoc wreaked by the Kenyan drought of 2019.
According to a briefing note by independent analysis provider ACAPS, “Kenya has been facing drought conditions since the end of 2018” and “the delayed onset of the April-June long rains in 2019 has further exacerbated the effects of the drought”.
Through the reverse-image search, we also came across a video on YouTube, dated 20 March 2019, titled “Majonzi yatawala njaa na ukame mkali Turkana, Kenya, picha za waathirika ZINATISHA”. This translates to “Sadness reigns in hunger and severe drought in Turkana, Kenya, the pictures of the victims are SCARY”. At 1:57, the pictures of the man in a purple rag can be seen in the video.
Furthermore, IFCN signatory 211 Check, based in South Sudan, confirmed that the first image in the claim shows Lieutenant General Omar Zain al-Abdin, and that the two other photos show an emaciated man from Kenya which date back to the post on X by a BBC journalist.
Hence, Soch Fact Check concludes that the first photo in the claim shows Sudan’s Lieutenant General Omar Zain al-Abdin, head of the political committee of the country’s military council. Moreover, the two pictures of the elderly, emaciated man are from Kenya, and were taken in context of the country-wide drought in 2019. They do not show any Defence Minister of Sudan.
Virality
On Facebook, the claim was shared here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
On Instagram, the claim was shared here.
Conclusion: The first photo in the post shows Lieutenant General Omar Zain al-Abdin, head of Sudan’s military council’s political committee, at a press conference in April 2019. The other two photos in the post show an elderly, emaciated man who was likely an affectee of the Kenyan drought of 2019.
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Background image in cover photo: Atlantic Council
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