No, this video does not show “African migrants” arriving on “the Spanish coasts”

Published on : 06/25/2021 – 19:39

The video shows several dozen migrants disembarking from a wooden boat on a beach and quickly chased by police officers. They are helped by the people present who shout to them “run, run!” in Spanish and tell them where to go. The scene was filmed and widely shared on social media.

Posted to Facebook on May 19 and viewed 7.6 million times, the video in this post has the caption, in Arabic, “# Video_ The moment African migrants arrive on the Spanish coast.”

In this other publication Facebook on a Senegalese page, Teledakar, the video is shared without context, letting internet users believe that the sequence is taking place in Senegal.

In fact, a reverse image search (see how to do this here) with a screenshot of the video leads to many posts on social media and Spanish-speaking media. This scene did not take place in Spain or Senegal, but in Puerto Rico on May 16. The migrants are not Africans but Haitians and Dominicans.

Several media resume the video, such as the Puerto Rican daily Diario Libre or Hoy, and relate the facts: A wooden boat from the Dominican Republic landed with migrants on a beach in Rincon, Puerto Rico, on May 16. The information is often repeated by mentioning “a group of Dominicans”. The Arabic-speaking media Fatabyyano published a fact-checkin articleg one of the video’s publications in Arabic, viewed over 3 million times, which located the scene in Spain.

On Tik Tok for example, a clip of the video has been viewed over 13 million times, and the video has also been shared on Twitter. The scene was filmed from other angles, as shown this video posted on Facebook. We also discover it at greater length, especially in this one, four minutes long, posted on Youtube – you can see what happens on the beach after disembarking on the beach.

The American Customs and Border Protection of the Caribbean has also shared on its Twitter account the video, indicating that the disembarkation, dangerous, could have cost the lives of those in the boat, on the beach or to any other person present. . Seventeen people were arrested, according to the tweet shared by customs.

To follow the daily checks of the Observers team, subscribe to the Twitter account @ InfoIntoxF24.