Video of Ethiopian mayor admitting she confided in rebel group is fake
- Published on May 29, 2025 at 10:39
- 4 min read
- By Tolera FIKRU GEMTA, AFP Ethiopia
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“Adanech has leaked secrets,” reads the text overlay on a video posted on Facebook on May 18, 2025.
The post contains a 22-second clip that shows Adanech speaking at a gathering.
“My ex-husband was Amhara, and we had one daughter together. Following our minor dispute, he joined the Fano forces,” Adanech appears to say.
Fano is a militia group in Ethiopia’s Amhara region that has been fighting against the Ethiopian army since July 2023.
“He is currently fighting with our government, but we often talk over the telephone since he is my daughter’s father,” Adanech appears to add. “Sometimes he mocks me and says: ‘We are heading to Addis Ababa, are you ready?’.”
The text accompanying the post reads: “You Amhara men, did we not tell you not to marry women from any other ethnicity, but Amhara only?”
Adanech is Oromo, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group.
Similar posts were also shared here and here on Facebook.
Addis Ababa development
Ethiopia is experiencing armed conflicts in its two major regions: Oromia and Amhara. AFP’s investigations revealed that the warring parties are using advanced disinformation tactics to smear their opponents, which is contributing to ethnic polarisation (archived here).
Adanech has also faced trouble closer to home.
AFP has reported on the demolition of historic buildings in the heart of Addis Ababa as part of Ethiopia’s extensive urban development projects (archived here).
Critics say the urban renewal scheme, known as the Addis Ababa Corridor Development Project, has not only wrecked buildings but also the history and identity associated with the area.
Last month, Amnesty International called on the Ethiopian government to immediately halt the projects that it says have led to “forced evictions” (archived here).
Adanech has defended the projects as a benefit to society as a whole by creating wide roads, cycle paths and children’s playgrounds.
However, her speech purportedly revealing how she had leaked sensitive information to Fano was altered.
Unrelated speech
AFP Fact Check used the video verification tool InVID-WeVerify to conduct reverse image searches on keyframes from the video.
The results established that a longer original video was published on the official YouTube channel of state-owned broadcaster Addis Media Network (AMN) on May 18, 2025 (archived here).
An Amharic caption accompanying the video reads: “Mayor Adanech Abebie noted that the city residents have benefited from the project accomplished in collaboration with business owners.”
The video begins by showing dilapidated houses in cramped neighbourhoods, followed by testimonials from residents who say their lives have been improved by the new homes built by the city.
About a minute into the original video, Adanech begins speaking in Amharic about housing projects for low-income residents in the district of Addis Ketema: “I remember it was even difficult to get into those areas and do the excavation work because it was very confined there.”
“This situation has changed and pleasant residential buildings with good streets and playgrounds for children have been built in the area,” she adds.
At no point did Adanech mention a former husband or Fano rebels.
Artificially-generated audio
The false Facebook post took a passage from Adanech’s original speech (from 4’02” to 4’22”), slowed it down slightly, and replaced her words with AI-generated audio.
While the audio is in Amharic, the accent is off. There are also clear discrepancies between the words and Adanech’s lip movements. For example, during the phrase “minor dispute and he mocks me”, her lips barely move.
These are all clear signs that the audio was AI-generated.
AFP Fact Check also ran the audio through an audio deepfake detector called DeepfakeTotal.
The results showed a more than 99 percent probability that the audio was artificially created.
AFP Fact Check has previously debunked AI-generated videos on a range of topics in Ethiopia, such as here, here and here.
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