Video shows Sudanese refugees fleeing to Chad, not Nigerian soldiers invading Niger

This article is more than one year old.
Published on August 28, 2023 at 15:13
3 min read
By Fikayo OWOEYE, AFP Nigeria

Days after the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) announced that it had agreed on a “D-Day” to send security forces to Niger, a video was shared online with a claim that it showed Nigerian soldiers marching into Niger. But this is false: the footage shows Sudanese refugees fleeing the war-torn Darfur region in Sudan for Chad. The video is unrelated to the political crisis in post-coup Niger.

A Facebook post published on August 15, 2023 claims that a video clip showing masses of people on an open plain depicts Nigerian troops crossing its northern border into Niger.

The post has been shared more than 8,000 times.

A screenshot showing the false video, taken on August 24, 2023

The two-minute video features a narrator speaking pidgin English, a simplified form of English common to large parts of Nigeria.

"Breaking news Nigeria: battalion don enter Niger," she says, further claiming the video shows the border between the two countries

In the footage, a crowd can be seen moving in the distance. The narrator also accuses Nigerian leader Bola Tinubu of sending unprepared troops to Niger.

The claim also appeared elsewhere on Facebook.

Soldiers led by former presidential guard commander General Abdourahamane Tiani ousted Mohamed Bazoum, Niger’s democratically elected leader, on July 26, 2023 (archived here).

ECOWAS, chaired by Tinubu, gave the new military regime a seven-day ultimatum to reinstate Bazoum or risk reprisal.

After the deadline passed on August 6, 2023, leaders of ECOWAS ordered the activation of a "standby force" (archived here ). At the group’s last meeting in Ghana on August 18, 2023, ECOWAS confirmed it had agreed to a "D-day" for possible military intervention in Niger to restore civil rule if diplomatic efforts failed (archived here).

But the claim that the video shows Nigerian troops moving into Niger is false.

Fleeing Sudanese refugees

Using the video verification tool InVID-WeVerify to conduct reverse image searches on keyframes from the footage, AFP Fact Check found the original version of the video American news broadcaster CNN’s YouTube channel (archived here).

The video is a CNN report about the latest humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region and was published on July 21, 2023. The narrator describes the sea of heads in the video as refugees fleeing on foot to neighbouring Chad – not Nigerian troops moving into Niger.

AFP Fact Checked found matching trees, shrubs, and a dirt road, in CNN’s video and the clip on Facebook.

A screenshot showing a comparison between the false post (left) and CNN’s video

The current conflict in Darfur between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group is part of a broader war in Sudan that began in April 2023 (archived here).

The RSF – an evolution of the Janjaweed militias who committed atrocities in Darfur 20 years ago – began to fall out with the government after a peace deal was signed in 2020 (archived here).

Since the outbreak of fighting this year, more than 900,000 refugees and asylum seekers have fled to neighbouring countries and 195,000 South Sudanese have been forced to leave Sudan, according to UN data (archive here).

AFP has debunked false claims about troops getting ready to invade Niger (here and here).

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