Claim: Some Ghanaians scheduled for deportation from Germany were seen jumping out of a moving bus conveying them to the airport.
Verdict: False. While the nationality of the individuals jumping out of the moving bus cannot be ascertained, our checks confirm that the incident happened in Algeria, not Germany.
Full Text
A video making rounds on social media claims that some Ghanaians due for deportation in Germany were seen jumping out of a bus conveying them to the airport to avoid returning to Ghana.
The claim has been seen on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and continues to spread in various WhatsApp groups.
“These are Ghanaians that are being deported jumping out from a moving bus in Germany that is taking them to the airport, to take them back to GH. They are fearful of coming back to their country because of the hardships in Ghana,” a text accompanying the video says.
Verification
After an extensive search, it was found that the video has also gone viral in Nigeria, claiming that the individuals seen jumping out of the moving bus were Nigerians.
Unable to determine the nationality of the individuals captured in the video, DUBAWA Ghana looked into the veracity of the claim that the incident happened in Germany.
After breaking down the video into key frames and subjecting it to further analysis, key elements such as vehicle number plates and physical infrastructure captured in the video were assessed.
At the 2 seconds mark of the 15 seconds video, a vehicle registration plate with the number “156425 115 16” was captured – written in black on a yellow background on the back of a car.
At the 11 seconds mark of the 15 seconds video, another vehicle registration plate was captured with its number also in black but on white background in front of the car.
Juxtaposing the registration plate’s characteristics with the vehicle registration system in Germany, we found that such registration was alien in Germany.
While the vehicle registration plates sighted in the video were only numeric, vehicles in Germany had alphanumeric plates, as shown in the photos below.
Again, vehicle registration plates in Germany have the EU flag on them. The one in the video does not.
Photo of vehicles in a traffic jam in Germany. Credit: The Berlin Spectator
Skoda, a subsidiary of German automobile giant Volkswagen Group also explains on its website that vehicles in Germany have alphanumeric registrations.
Websites like this, this and worldlicenseplates.com confirm the profile of an Algerian vehicle registration plate as matching the one that appears in the video.
Further checks using Google Lens suggest that the buildings captured in the video match the design and outlook of AADL apartments built in different parts of Algeria by the National Housing Improvement and Development Agency of Algeria.
The project comprises several residential buildings, 1,100 residential apartments, parking facilities, leisure facilities and other infrastructure.
The project volume makes it naturally impossible to investigate and find the exact match of the specific incident location.
Below are photos of the apartment buildings and the shot captured from the viral video.
Other views from the site can be found here and here.
Conclusion
While the nationality of the individuals seen rushing out of a moving bus could not be immediately established, our checks show that the incident did not happen in Germany but in Algeria.
