A number of posts shared widely across social media have falsely claimed seven-year-old British schoolgirl Emily Jones was killed by a Somali migrant, and her photo has been used to fuel a “White Lives Matter” campaign.
Examples of the claim can be seen here, here and here .
Others, picking up on the false Somali link, have accused the media of covering up the case and used the murdered child’s photo on “White Lives Matter” banners (here) .
Emily was stabbed to death while playing in Queen’s Park in Bolton in March. The woman charged with her murder is not a Somali migrant. The suspect, Eltiona Skana, is originally from Albania ( here , here ).
The victim’s parents have since released a statement calling upon protesters to stop using their daughter’s photo for their campaign, saying it is “incredibly upsetting”.
They said: “We can’t thank people enough for the support we have received as we continue to live through the nightmare that is life without Emily, but we’re still grieving over the loss of our beautiful daughter and seeing her picture being used as part of recent protests is causing us huge distress.
“A woman has been charged with the murder of our daughter and we want to ensure that we respect the legal process and ask people not to speculate over the circumstances surrounding her death” (here)
VERDICT
False. There is no evidence to suggest the killer of schoolgirl Emily Jones was from Somalia.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts here .
Fact check: British schoolgirl Emily Jones was not killed by a Somali migrant
A number of posts shared widely across social media have falsely claimed seven-year-old British schoolgirl Emily Jones was killed by a Somali migrant, and her photo has been used to fuel a “White Lives Matter” campaign.
