Altered video falsely claims Ethiopian army’s chief of staff was assassinated

The Facebook Reel was published on July 9, 2023 and has been shared more than 1,000 times. Large text in Amharic added to the clip translates to “Rest in peace”.

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Screenshot of the altered post, taken on July 31, 2023

The minute-long video begins with a news presenter purportedly saying in Amharic that “the FDRE National Defense chief of staff, field marshal Berhanu Jula, was assassinated in an apparent attack earlier today”. FDRE stands for the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.

In January 2022, General Berhanu Jula was the first Ethiopian officer to be awarded the military rank of field marshal (archived here).

The video includes a photograph of Berhanu and another image of a burning candle behind him. Also visible is the logo of ETV, a state-owned broadcaster in Ethiopia.

The timing of the video’s publication coincided with an ongoing crackdown against political violence by federal forces in Oromia and Amhara regional states, leading to the death of civilians (archived here). The unrest followed the government’s decision to disarm regional militia, a move that has stirred resentment toward security forces.

However, the video in the Facebook Reel is a doctored version of a news report unrelated to Bernahu, who is still alive.

Doctored video

AFP Fact Check used the video verification tool InVID-WeVerify to conduct reverse image searches on keyframes from the footage.

We found that the clip is an extract from a slightly longer news report by ETV that was uploaded by the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) to its YouTube channel on April 27, 2023 (archived here). ETV is one of EBC’s media platforms.

The original footage was two minutes long and included various news items, including Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s message of condolence following the death of Girma Yeshitila, the head of the ruling Prosperity Party in Amhara region who was killed in April.

AFP also reported on Girma’s assassination (archived here).

The altered video took the segment about Girma, specifically from 1’10” to 2’15”, and edited it to give the impression Berhanu was the one who had been killed.

In the first 15 seconds, an image of Girma was replaced on screen by a photo of Bernahu, which was taken by the Ethiopian Press Agency in 2019 (archived here).

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Screenshots of the original video (left) and the altered video (right), taken on July 31, 2023 

Moreover, the names in the news report were altered three times to make it sound like the presenter was speaking about Berhanu rather than Girma.

For example, the opening statement that “Amhara region’s head of Prosperity Party Girma Yeshitila was assassinated in an apparent attack earlier today” became “the FDRE National Defense chief of staff, field marshal Berhanu Jula, was assassinated in an apparent attack earlier today”.

AFP Fact Check conducted a keyword search for “Berhanu Jula” and confirmed that the audio segment comprising Berhanu’s name and military rank that was used in the altered video came from another news report read by the same presenter on January 12, 2022 (archived here). The broadcast carried comments by Berhanu about military ranks awarded by President Sahle-Work Zewde to army officers in January 2022.

We also detected noticeable changes in the audio at the points where Berhanu’s name was inserted. They can be heard nine seconds into the video and again nine seconds later.

The remaining part of the altered video shows the condolence message from Abiy in the wake of Girma’s assassination. This part of the footage was untouched and appeared in the original broadcast.

According to local media, Berhanu attended the annual meeting of the Northern Ethiopia Military Command on July 26, 2023 – two weeks after the claim about his assassination was made (archived here).