Video of protest in Ethiopia's Oromia region was taken in 2022, not 2023

“The people of Ambo and the youth say that patience has a limit, and they have demanded an immediate end to the killing of civilians by government forces in Wollega,” reads a post written in Afaan Oromoo, one of Ethiopia’s main languages.

Wollega is a zone in Oromia, while Ambo is a town in the same region.

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Screenshot of the misleading post, taken on September 21, 2023 

A video in the post features a large outdoors gathering of people who are chanting in Afaan Oromoo.

The post was published on September 17, 2023 and has been shared more than 400 times.

A similar post containing screenshots from the video was published on the same date, claiming in Afaan Oromoo that “a public rally is being conducted in Ambo city” to protest the killing of civilians.

This post blames a militia group known as Fano for the bloodshed.

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Screenshot of the second misleading post, taken on September 21, 2023

Both claims surfaced after local media reported (archived here) that civilians in the Oromia region were killed on September 15, 2023, allegedly by Fano.

Armed conflict

Fano primarily operates in the neighbouring Amhara region where it is engaged in an armed conflict with Ethiopian defence forces (archived here).

Fighting erupted in early July between the national army and Fano rebels after months of tensions triggered by a government decision to disarm regional forces.

The unrest prompted Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to declare a six-month state of emergency on August 4, 2023, giving authorities sweeping powers to arrest people, impose curfews and ban public gatherings.

Oromia shares a border with Amhara from the East Wollega route where ethnic conflicts between the two regions have been reported (archived here).

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has accused federal government forces of carrying out extra-judicial killings in Amhara and mass arbitrary detentions (archived here).

The video, however, is unrelated to the current fighting between Fano and Ethiopian soldiers.

Old video

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

The search revealed that the video was originally aired (archived here) on December 6, 2022, by privately-owned broadcaster Oromia Media Network (OMN) on YouTube.

The footage formed part of a longer news bulletin about protesting Oromo students from different universities in Ethiopia. The demonstrations were held to highlight the killing of Oromos in Oromia.

The OMN bulletin is 3’29” in total but the footage of the protests starts at 1’35”.

A news presenter says in Afaan Oromoo that “Ambo University students staged strong protests, denouncing the killings of Oromo people committed by the government and Amhara armed militias against Oromo people earlier this morning”.

Prior to this year’s eruption of violence in Amhara, Fano and Ethiopia’s military were seen as allies following a brutal war in Tigray region which began in November 2020 and ended two years later.

The protest footage shows a large gathering of youths shouting in Afaan Oromoo that “arbitrary killings of Oromo people in Wollega and Shawa should be stopped immediately”.

Local news outlets also reported (archived here) on the protests in December 2022.

The video shared on Facebook in a misleading context is 2’12” long.

The first 1’17” shows the original student demonstrations, while the remaining part shows a banner reading “Save Oromo” in Afaan Oromoo and English.

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Screenshot of the banner reading “save Oromo”, taken on September 21, 2023

Old photos of protests from different events and images of Ambo and its university are also included in the second part of the video.

Using reverse image searches, AFP Fact Checked traced them to various websites here, here, here and here (archived here, here,here and here.)