Fact-Check: Old video from Myanmar misleadingly linked to the latest Manipur Violence. Here are the facts

Amid the escalating violence in Manipur, a video showing two individuals releasing drones in the sky and an overview scene of a locality is making rounds on social media platforms such as Instagram & X (formerly Twitter) with the claim that Kuki militants driven by antipathy are planning to harm the Meitei community.

While sharing this video on Instagram, a user wrote: “INDIGENOUS MEETEI HOUSE DRONE ATTACK BY KUKI MILITANT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS..”

Furthermore, the video was also shared on Facebook with the similar claim.

Fact-check

To determine the reality of the surfaced video, the DFRAC team converted it into some keyframes and reverse-searched them on Google. We found that the video dated back to Jun 2023 and associated with the military conflict of Sagaing region, Myanmar. We found the extended version of this video on the YouTube account of Mandalay free Press-MFP (based in Myanmar) The video was posted in Jun 2023 with the caption: “A bomb attack on a military group that is doing violence around the village” (Translated from Burmese)

The video’s description read: “In Sagaing Region’s Ertao Township, the killers roamed the villages relying on weapons. robbery Ayadaw Bone Naing – ABN PDF reports that two armed groups were killed when they attacked the military group that was burning on May 31st when they were entering the village of Wa Tan.

On the afternoon of May 31st, the military group that was entering the village of Watan in Ertao Township was attacked by the Monywa District Battalion (19). Ayadaw Bone Naing: ABN PDF, MRTF Guerrilla Force AMT Guerrilla Force Sae Nyo Guerrilla Force Reflective PDF He said that a battle with that military group took place for more than half an hour at 8:00 p.m., as well as a drone and bomb attack in cooperation with the Patti Nyaung Guerrilla Forces.” ((Translated from Burmese)

Moreover, the same video was also posted on the Facebook page of Mandalay Free Press stating similar details about this video.

Conclusion

It is evident from DFRAC’ s fact-check that the viral video is unrelated to the fresh violence that erupted in Manipur. Originally, the video was from Jun 2023 and related to the military conflict that took place in the Sagaing region of Myanmar.

Analysis: Misleading