Video from Algeria shared as African immigrants jumping off bus in Germany

By: Ishita Goel
August 4 2023

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What's the claim?
A video of individuals jumping off a moving bus in the middle of a busy road is viral on social media. It has been shared with a caption that African immigrants jumped off a bus in Germany while being transported to the airport for deportation. A post sharing this video on Facebook on July 25 has garnered 22,000 likes and 1,400 shares. Here is the archive link.

What is the fact?
On analysis, we found that the video is from Algeria and not Germany. 

A website called Arabic RT published a report in Arabic on July 3, 2023, and stated that the video was shot in Algeria and reportedly showed illegal immigrants from the countries of the Sahel and Sahara escaping through a window of a bus that was carrying them before their deportation from Algeria. It attached a post on the platform X (formerly Twitter) by @Abc_arabia1 which carried the viral video. 

Likewise, on July 3, an Arabic-language Moroccan online news website called Hespress posted the viral video on X with an Arabic caption, which translated to: "Migrants jump out of a bus window before being deported from Algeria."

How did we verify it is Algeria?
We analysed key footage from the 0:10 mark of the Abc_arabia1 video. The buildings seen are the National Agency for the Improvement and Development of Housing (AADL). A YouTube user posted a video on August 12, 2020, of similar apartments being constructed and wrote, originally in French, "Cité AADL Douera AADL Algiers.” Algiers is the capital of Algeria. Further, a Facebook post dated July 15, 2021, shared an image of similar apartments and wrote, "The first batch of 10,000 apartments affiliated with the AADL-20000 housing project in Algeria was delivered ahead of schedule."

At the 0:02 mark of the viral video, we can see the license plate of the black car, which reads, "156425 115 16." On comparing with the license plate standards in Algeria, we noted that the car plate was yellow, with black digits, per Algerian standards. Further, we studied the system for serial numbers in Algeria and found that digit 1 signifies the vehicle is private, 15 is the year it was manufactured (2015), and 16 indicates the province of Algiers. Also, the details stated are mentioned on Page 22 in Arabic of a PDF published by the General Secretariat of the Government, Algeria. These details clarify that the video is from Algiers, Algeria.

Migrants in Africa
In July 2023, DW published a report titled "Desert Hell: Africa's Role in the Deportation of Immigrants." The report states that according to the International Organization for Migration, 70 percent of migration within Africa takes place within the West African region alone. However, in recent years, irregular migration to Europe has increased from countries in sub-Saharan Africa, West and Central Africa. This has increased the migrant population in countries and resulted in deportations, and Algeria is one of the countries that carry out mass deportations of migrants.

The verdict
The video purporting to show immigrants jumping out of a bus was recorded in Algeria, not Germany. The video was shot in Algiers, the capital of Algeria. Therefore, we have marked the claim as misleading.