Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
Claim
Mass escape of illegal African immigrants from a moving bus in Germany to evade deportation.
Fact
Video was found to be from Algeria.
Several social media users are circulating a video, claiming to show illegal African immigrants jumping out from the window of a moving bus taking them to the airport in Germany to be deported.
European governments have been stepping up efforts to stop asylum seekers from entering or remaining in the territory, such as the UK government’s Illegal Migration Bill, set to become a law, which looks to remove illegal migrants from the UK and would make it a crime to cross the English Channel by boat and would put everyone arriving via that route in detention.
The archived versions of the tweets can be seen here and here.
Also Read: 2018 Video From US Airport Falsely Claimed As Suicide Of Nigerian Immigrant At Heathrow
Fact Check
Newschecker noticed that the claims were not consistent, with one stating that the immigrants were from Nigeria, while another said they were from Ghana, raising our doubts.
We then ran a keyword search for “Africa immigrants Germany bus”, which did not throw up any relevant news reports of such an incident.
A reverse image search of keyframes led us to this RTOnline news report in Arabic, dated July 3, 2023, stating there was a mass escape of immigrants from a bus in Algeria. According to the report, the immigrants were trying to avoid deportation in order to remain in Algeria, either to work and settle in the country or to try and reach Europe.
“Thousands of immigrants from the African Sahel and sub-Saharan countries flock to Algeria annually for the purpose of making trips to the European coasts or staying in Algeria,” read the report. Similar articles can be seen here and here.
A relevant keyword search led us to a clearer version of the video, as seen in this tweet, dated July 3, 2023.
We analysed the vehicle registration plate, which comprised only numbers and learnt that it corresponded with the Algerian vehicle registration system, where there are three groups of numbers on the plate.
We also learned that a German licence plate comprises letters and numerals, contradicting the plate of the car seen in the video.
Also Read: 2020 Video Of Man Wailing Shared In Context Of Communal Violence in Nuh
Conclusion
Viral video of illegal immigrants jumping out of a moving bus to evade deportation found to be from Algeria, not Germany.
Result: Partly False
Sources
RTOnline report, July 3, 2023
Al Arabiya report, July 3, 2023
Image analysis
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Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
