2023 Ethiopian military parade misrepresented as Eritrea invasion

Published on February 27, 2026 at 16:53
3 min read
By Tolera FIKRU GEMTA, AFP Ethiopia

Military tension between the neighbouring states of Ethiopia and Eritrea has seen both reportedly mobilising their armies to their shared border areas. However, a video posted on Facebook purporting to show the Ethiopian army entering Eritrea has been altered. The original shows the Ethiopian army parading in the centre of the capital, Addis Ababa, in 2023.

The post, shared on February 21, 2026, features a text overlay in Amharic that reads: “Our defence force has entered Eritrea”, followed by an image of the Ethiopian flag.

The accompanying caption in Amharic reads: “Victory to Ethiopian Defence Force.”

Screenshot of the post with the altered video, taken on February 26, 2026

Shared more than 100 times, the post contains a 24-second clip showing military vehicles conveying soldiers and artillery, while a crowd watches from the side of the road. Amharic music about Ethiopian heroism on the battlefield plays in the background.

Escalating tensions

Earlier this month, Ethiopia accused Eritrea of making incursions into Ethiopian territory and demanded immediate withdrawal -- allegations Asmara denied (archived here).

The two Horn of Africa states were allied during the 2020–2022 Tigray war, a conflict that killed more than 600,000 people. However, relations between the two countries deteriorated sharply after the war ended with the Pretoria peace agreement, more recently owing to Ethiopia’s demands for access to Eritrea’s Red Sea port in Assab.

AFP reported on February 17, 2026, that Ethiopia had mobilised troops along the Eritrean border in the northern Tigray region, with diplomats warning that a new war could erupt between the two countries (archived here).

However, the footage does not show the Ethiopian army entering Eritrea.

2023 military parade

AFP Fact Check used InVID-WeVerify to conduct reverse image searches on keyframes from the video and found the original version was published by the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) on YouTube on March 2, 2023 (archived here).

The EBC video is more than 13 minutes long and captioned in Amharic as the “127th anniversary of Adwa victory military parade”.

Adwa was the site of a decisive victory by Ethiopia over invading Italian forces in March 1896 (archived here).

The footage shows an Ethiopian military parade featuring heavy artillery and an airshow performance in the presence of former Ethiopian president Sahle-Work Zewde, the defence chief of staff, and others.

The altered clip was packaged using footage from this video at 1’30”, 4’40”, and 6’05”. These segments were stitched together to falsely portray the Ethiopian army on Eritrean soil.

AFP Fact Check also established that the playback speed was also increased in some parts of the edited video, creating a false sense of urgency and mimicking real battlefield manoeuvres.

Screenshots of the original video (top) and from the altered clip, taken on February 26, 2026

The footage was geolocated on Google Maps to Meskel Square in central Addis Ababa. Distinct landmarks, including the square itself, the prominent light rail bridges, and the Wegagen Bank headquarters in the background, match those seen in the original video.

Screenshots of Wegagen Bank headquarters and light rail bridge in the original video (top) and on Google Maps Street View, taken on February 26, 2026

In the altered video, these landmarks were intentionally cropped from the footage to obscure the location.

Screenshots of the original video with Wegagen Bank and surrounding buildings (left) and the edited video without the landmarks, taken on February 26, 2026

AFP Fact Check has previously debunked a claim related to the threat of renewed war between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

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