Latest news with #AFPFactCheck
AFP
4 days ago
- Politics
- AFP
Video shows stampede at Tel Aviv memorial event, not Israelis fleeing to bunkers
'Israeli Settlers fleeing to Bunkers as Iranian missiles being to arrive,' reads part of the caption of a video shared on Facebook on June 15, 2025. The video shows people running in different directions in an open area, leaving behind white chairs. Image Screenshot of the false Facebook post, taken on June 24, 2025 The post was shared two days after Israel started firing missiles at Iran on June 13, hitting nuclear and military sites as well as residential areas, prompting counterattacks from Tehran (archived here and here). The United States also used bunker-busting bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities, which was followed by an Iranian missile attack targeting a US military base in Qatar (archived here). Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 610 civilians and wounded more than 4,700, according to the health ministry. Iran's attacks on Israel have killed 28 people, according to official figures and rescuers. A fragile ceasefire came into effect on June 24, 2025, bringing an end to 12 days of fighting. However, the video circulated on social media does not show Israelis fleeing to bunkers for shelter. Tel Aviv stampede AFP Fact Check extracted keyframes from the video to conduct reverse image searches. This led to the original version, shared on X on April 30, 2025 – weeks before the warfare started (archived here). According to its caption, the video showed a stampede that happened at a Yom Hazikaron event in Tel Aviv, which left 20 people injured. Yom Hazikaron, or Memorial Day, pays tribute to soldiers killed in the line of duty and to victims of attacks in Israel. ️Chaos at Tel Aviv Hostage Memorial as Police Clash Sparks Stampede At a Memorial Day ceremony in Tel Aviv, two Palestinian Israeli ushers were assaulted and arrested by police, triggering panic and a stampede that left 20 people lightly injured.#Israel# — Xnews_with_Grok (@Xnews_with_grok) April 30, 2025 An internet search of the keywords 'Tel Aviv + memorial + stampede' led to a news report by a local newspaper Israel Hayom that includes the same video as the one in the claim (archived here). The stampede, it reported, happened because event staff were misidentified as "suspicious individuals wearing vests" while trying to enter a memorial ceremony in Tel Aviv. Image Screenshot of the video in the false post (left) and the same footage in the report about the stampede, taken on June 25, 2025 AFP Fact Check has previously debunked several other false claims related to the Israel-Iran war, such as here, here and here.
AFP
5 days ago
- Politics
- AFP
Video of Israelis begging Iran for mercy is AI-generated
US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire in the Iran-Israel conflict after nearly two weeks of war during which American bombers also struck Iranian nuclear sites. While Israel and Iran were trading missile strikes, a video was shared on Facebook in Ethiopia purporting to show Israelis begging Iran for mercy. However, this is false: the video was created with an artificial intelligence (AI) tool. The post published on Facebook on June 19, 2025, contains an Amharic text overlay that reads: 'The Israeli people beg Iran in this manner.' The post has been shared more than 5,200 times and received more than 5,400 comments. Image Screenshot of the false post, taken on June 23, 2025 The post contains a 16-second video with two segments in which people appear to call on Iran to end the attacks against Israel. 'Iran please stop, it is enough,' says a woman speaking in English, with tears in her eyes. 'We have nothing left. Our homes, our dreams, everything has been destroyed.' The woman is holding an Iranian flag and wearing a headband with the Israeli flag. The video then jumps to a group of people standing in a street. Two men and a woman hang their heads. The woman, who is holding a sign with Hebrew text, tearfully says, in English: 'We are sorry! We apologise to the people of Gaza.' In the comments under the video, which are mainly in Amharic, most people appear to believe the video is genuine. 'Iran is determined this time. It does not seem to stop the attack although Israelis are frightened and begged for mercy in this manner,' reads one comment. 'If you had asked your government to stop it when Gazan children were brutally massacred, you would have not faced this tragedy,' says another. Fragile ceasefire Israel launched airstrikes against Iran on June 13, 2025, hitting nuclear and military sites as well as residential areas, prompting swift retaliation from Iran. While Iran and Israel have been in a shadow war against each other for decades, this has been by far the most destructive confrontation between the arch-foes. The war has also seen US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, followed by an Iranian missile launch aimed at the largest US military facility in the Middle East -- Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar (archived here). On June 24, Trump announced a truce between Iran and Israel (archived here). However, the video purporting to show Israelis begging Iran to end attacks against their country is fabricated. AI-generated video Several glitches typical of AI are noticeable in the video. For example, in the second segment, when the man on the left wipes his eyes, his glasses briefly disappear and reappear. Then, the faces of the people in the background on the far right of the screen morph when they move. AFP Fact Check used the video verification tool InVID-WeVerify to conduct reverse image searches on keyframes from the video. The search results for the first segment of the video showed that it was published on YouTube with better resolution on June 18, 2025, one day before it was shared on Facebook (archived here). The YouTube version has a clear 'Veo' watermark in the bottom right corner. The same watermark can also be seen in the viral video, but due to the lower resolution, it is not very clear. Image Screenshots of the YouTube video with the 'Veo' watermark (left) and the Facebook post, taken on June 23, 2025 Veo is Google's new AI-powered video creation tool. The tool allows users to generate realistic-looking videos that are currently a maximum of eight seconds in length (archived here). The clip shared on Facebook is exactly eight seconds long. Similarly, the search results for the second segment revealed that it was also created using Veo. The clip was published on YouTube in higher resolution on June 18, 2025, with a clear 'Veo' watermark in the bottom right corner (archived here). This clip, again, is exactly eight seconds long.
AFP
23-06-2025
- Politics
- AFP
Posts mislead with claims of Nigeria's southeast being excluded from development projects
'Student Loan excluded South East, Jamb failed South East, Sea port, none in South East, NNPC/FIRS/Customs none from South East, Int'l Airport none in South East, Railway none in South East, Military checkpoints, everywhere in South East,' reads a post shared more than 900 times on Facebook. 'When they cry, you call them IPOB,' concludes the post, published on May 19, 2025. The post was shared by a page belonging to Nigerian singer Charles Oputa, popularly known as 'Charly Boy', to his 180,000 followers. AFP Fact Check has previously debunked claims by Charly Boy (here, here, here and here). Image Screenshot of the misleading Facebook post, taken on June 16, 2025 Nigeria's southeast comprises the states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo. A previous unilateral declaration of independence in the region and the creation of the republic of Biafra in 1967 led to a 30-month civil war that claimed more than one million lives, most of them Igbos, from the effects of conflict, starvation and disease. In 2015, renewed protests for Biafran independence re-emerged after decades, with Nnamdi Kanu as a leading figure. He was arrested in Kenya and extradited to Nigeria on June 27, 2021. He faces charges related to treason (archived here). His trial began afresh on March 21, 2025, after the former judge recused herself (archived here). However, the posts claim that the region has been excluded from infrastructural and development projects is misleading. Loan programme The claim that the southeast region was excluded from a national student loan programme is false. The programme was introduced by the Bola Tinubu administration in May 2024 to encourage more people to pursue higher education (archived here). As of May 2025, the Nigeria Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) said it had received over a million loan applications for tuition and upkeep from about 629,000 students (archived here). Data published by the fund showed that a little more than 40,000 students from the southeast had submitted over 57,000 loan applications. Image Screenshot of the loan disbursement dashboard taken on June 18, 2025 JAMB failure The claim about JAMB failure refers to the entry examination taken by teenagers who want to pursue tertiary education. The exam, Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), is coordinated by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB). JAMB reported mass failure in the 2025 edition of the examination, where 78% of the candidates scored less than 200 out of the maximum 400 points (archived here). The failure was later attributed to a technical glitch that affected students in the Lagos and southeast zones. About 206,000 students were affected in Lagos and 173,387 students were affected in the southeast zone (archived here). So this claim is true, though not limited to the southeast. Seaport The claim that there is no seaport in the southeast region of Nigeria is correct. Nigeria currently has seven seaports, which are all located in the southwest and south-south regions due to their proximity to the Atlantic Ocean (archived here). The southeast region, meanwhile, has rivers that run into the ocean but no coastal land. However, the Onitsha River Port – while not a seaport – is located in Anambra state in southeast Nigeria. The river port has reported receiving barges and containers in recent years (archived here and here). There is also an inland dry port under construction in Aba, Abia state (archived here). Inclusion in agencies The claim that there is no one from the southeast region in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the Nigerian Customs Service is misleading. Although the heads of these agencies are not from the southeast, there are other people from the southeast in top positions at these agencies, including the vice president of business services at the NNPCL (archived here). The FIRS Act also mandates that the management team must have a representative from each geopolitical zone, one of which is the southeast (archived here). This rule also applies to the Nigeria Customs Service (archived here). International airport The claim about the absence of an international airport in the southeast is false. The Akanu Ibiam International Airport is located in Enugu (archived here). However, the airports in Lagos and Abuja enjoy more passenger traffic (archived here). Railways The claim that there are no rail lines in the southeast region is false. In November 2024, the government completed and handed over the Port Harcourt-Aba Railway to the Nigeria Railway Corporation to start operations (archived here). In December 2024, the NRC said the trains transport between 500 and 900 passengers per trip (archived here). Military checkpoints The claim that military checkpoints are common in the southeast is true. Due to insecurity (archived here), Mohammed Abubakar, the minister of defence, last year pledged to ramp up security measures in the region with the stated aim of ensuring stability for businesses (archived here). Military checkpoints are also common in the northern region due to efforts to flush out armed groups like Boko Haram and conflicts between Fulani herders and farmers that have resulted in significant casualties (archived here).
Yahoo
20-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
AI image does not show French spy caught in Burkina Faso
'French spy has been captured by captain Ibrahim Traoré, president of Burkina Faso,' reads the caption accompanying a TikTok video posted on May 2, 2025. The post was shared more than 2,400 times. The video includes a static image that appears to show Burkina Faso's president standing next to a man wearing an army uniform, who has blood on his face and is holding his hands in the air. Several TikTok users have claimed that the man in the image is a French spy who was caught posing as a journalist by the name of Julien Moreau (seen here and here). This comes several months after four French nationals who had been held in Burkina Faso over espionage accusations were freed following more than a year of detention (archived here). The group was arrested in the capital, Ouagadougou, on December 1, 2023, and presented by the authorities as intelligence agents working for France's Directorate-General for External Security (archived here). They were released in December 2024, with French authorities thanking Morocco for mediation in the case. However, the claim that this image shows a captured French spy is false. A close look at the picture reveals several flaws commonly found in AI-generated images. For example, the writing on the man's army uniform is gibberish; it's not inscribed in French or any real language. Additionally, Traore's hands appear deformed. A reverse image search of the image led to the earliest occurrence of the claim we could find online: a YouTube video posted on May 1, 2025, seen here. In the caption, after a lengthy tale about a French man posing as a journalist who is then publicly confronted by Traore for being a spy, there is a disclaimer. 'This video is a work of fiction inspired by the life of Ibrahim Traoré,' the caption reads. 'The situations and dialogues depicted are entirely fictional.' Subsequent posts circulating on YouTube and TikTok do not contain any such disclaimers, leading users to believe the image and story is real. AFP Fact Check did not find any credible reports by international media on any French journalist being accused of espionage in Burkina Faso in May 2025. Several AI detection tools also considered the image to be AI-generated. Posts shared on social media with a similar claim that a French woman was caught spying in Burkina Faso were previously debunked by Euronews (archived here).
AFP
20-06-2025
- AFP
Unrelated image of injured man falsely linked to death of Kenyan killed in police custody
'A photo of Albert Ojwang when he was alive. Has resurfaced at the Central Police Station reception. His shirt was torn, and he was bleeding from the head (sic),' reads an X post published on June 9, 2025, and shared more than 600 times. Show Hide Content warning Show Image Screenshot of the false post, taken on June 18, 2025 Hide The image shows a man with a bloodied face and a torn shirt standing with his head tilted upwards. Similar claims were published elsewhere on X here and here. Fatal arrest Ojwang, a 31-year-old teacher, was reportedly arrested on June 6, 2025, in Western Kenya, and transported to the central police station in Kenya's capital Nairobi. He was accused of criticising deputy inspector general Eliud Lagat on social media (archived here). He was reported dead two days later, with police initially claiming he died after hitting his head against a cell wall. However, a pathologist's report indicated injuries consistent with assault (archived here). Ojwang's death sparked public outrage, which resulted in protests demanding justice and Lagat's resignation (archived here and here). Lagat has since announced he would 'step aside' from his position amid ongoing investigations. Additionally, two police officers and a technician accused of tampering with CCTV footage at the station have been arrested in connection with Ojwang's death (archived here and here). However, the posts purportedly showing an image of Ojwang at the station before he died are false. Unrelated image AFP Fact Check conducted reverse image searches and found the original image published on Facebook by ex-Kakamega county senator Cleophas Malala on June 9, 2025, alongside claims that his driver was assaulted by police (archived here). 'The Kakamega OCPD - a one MR. ROTICH and three other uniformed officers trailed my vehicle and forced my driver to stop,' he wrote. '*Disappointingly, upon confirming I was not on board, they commanded him to drive to an unknown destination. When he refused, they assaulted him so severely using a gun pointer that he was left profusely bleeding (sic).' 'This is unconscionable brutality by those sworn to protect us,' he continued. 'Our nation sinks deeper into lawlessness when officers become perpetrators. We will not be intimidated—we are formally filing a complaint with IPOA (Independent Policing Oversight Authority).' The incident was also reported by local media (archived here and here).
