AI-generated clip falsely claims Ethiopian pastor called on rebels to overthrow government
- Published on October 21, 2025 at 11:07
- 3 min read
- By Tolera FIKRU GEMTA, AFP Ethiopia
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A bloody conflict between the Ethiopian army and rebels from the country’s northern Amhara region has escalated in 2025. Videos circulating online claim to show a well-known Ethiopian pastor calling on Amhara rebels to take over the government. However, the video was AI-generated.
The Amharic text accompanying the post reads: “Watch what this religious leader saying, ‘The Addis Ababa government is not working for the people’.”
Shared more than 200 times, the clip appears to show Tizitaw Samuel, a Protestant pastor and former Ethiopian Orthodox Church singer who lives in the United States.
Preaching before a large crowd, he appears to say in Amharic: “The Addis Ababa government is not able to work for the people.”
“Today, we want the Amhara Fano to come and overtake the government,” he adds.
Fano is a militia group that has been fighting against the Ethiopian army since April 2023.
The crowd then responds with loud shouts of “Amen”, raising their hands in unison. Two people even appear to perform handstands.
Online users posting comments under the video seem to believe it is genuine, and their reactions reflect the country’s divisions.
“This is crazy. How come all these people say Amen to such evil calls? When will our people become aware of evil missions?” writes one user. “Amen! Amen!! Fano will come soon,” comments another.
AFP Fact Check has previously debunked a claim related to Tizitaw.
Two months ago, he held a large spiritual music conference in Addis Ababa, which became a topic of discussion on social media in regards to how he adapted his former Orthodox songs to reflect Protestant beliefs (archived here).
A similar post was shared here on Facebook.
Escalating conflict
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on October 10, 2025, that many people had been killed or injured recently in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, where government forces and rebel groups have been fighting (archived here).
The conflict between the Ethiopian army and the Amhara ethnic militia known as Fano erupted in April 2023.
Despite the lifting of a state of emergency in June 2024, clashes between the federal army and Fano forces have persisted.
However, the clip does not show Tizitaw calling on the Fano rebels to take over the government.
AI-generated clip
AFP Fact Check identified several clues that the footage was artificially generated.
Firstly, many women in the audience have near-identical facial features. Secondly, the crowd’s hand movements appear unnaturally synchronised.
Finally, the two men performing handstands toward the end of the clip seem to bend in anatomically impossible ways.
These are all typical anomalies with AI-generated content.
Furthermore, the clip bears a clear “Veo” watermark in the bottom right corner.
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 -- the same length of time as the clip in question (archived here).
Google DeepMind’s SynthID detector, a tool that identifies content generated by the company’s AI consumer products, confirmed that the entire video and at least some parts of the audio were created using Veo.
There is also no evidence that Tizitaw has made any public call for Fano rebels to take over the government.
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