A video shared on Facebook allegedly shows gunfire in Chad amid the ongoing turmoil in the country.

Verdict: False

The video, which dates back to July 2020, shows fighting in Iraq. It is unrelated to the situation in Chad.

Fact Check:

Idriss Deby Itno, who had been president of Chad since 1990, recently died of injuries sustained amid clashes with rebel forces north of Chad’s capital city of N’djamena, according to CNN. His funeral occurred Friday, with other African leaders and French President Emmanuel Macron in attendance, The New York Times reported.

Following the Chadian president’s death, a video depicting gunfire streaking through the night sky with several trucks in the foreground circulated on Facebook. The captions of multiple iterations of the video attempted to suggest it depicts an April firefight in Chad.

Through a reverse image search of key frames, Check Your Fact found the video has been circulating online since at least July 2020 and was not taken in Chad. The state-controlled Russia Today published the video on its RT Arabic Facebook page in July that year with the caption indicating it was actually filmed in Iraq.

“Violent confrontations with weapons between two Iraqi clans,” reads the roughly translated caption of RT Arabic’s video. “A video clip obtained by RT showed the sky of Maysan Governorate, southern Iraq, drenched with live bullets as a result of armed clashes, due to a conflict between two Iraqi clans there.”

In July 2020, an Iraq-based photographer also posted the video on YouTube, where the title translates to: “A tribal battle with medium weapons in Maysan governorate, Al-Kahla district, near the border headquarters.” (RELATED: Has The Madagascan President Called For African Countries To Leave The WHO?)

Facebook users previously shared the footage last year, falsely claiming it showed a firefight in Yemen, according to AFP Middle East and North Africa.