Wu’erkaixi claimed that he was present at the square when the soldiers arrived after martial law was declared and that he had personally seen around 200 student protesters cut down by gunfire in Tiananmen square. However, according to the Columbia Journalism Review, all verified eyewitness accounts had attested that the students who remained in the square when troops arrived to clear them, had all been allowed to leave the square peacefully. It was later "proven" that Wu’erkaixi himself had already left the square several hours before the massacre inside the square that he claimed allegedly occurred.[4]