Old Clip Shared Claiming Wildfires in Greece Were Caused by 'Illegal Migrants'

The video is from Greece but dates back to 2019 and shows a clash between police and migrants.

While Greece has witnessed more than 600 wildfires in the recent weeks, a video of some people trying to ignite shrubs is going viral on social media to claim that 'illegal migrants' living in Greece were responsible for starting these deadly wildfires.

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What's the truth?: While the video is indeed from Greece, it dates back to 2019.

• It shows a clash between migrants and the police at Diavata in Northern Greece after the migrants were stopped from crossing the border.

How did we find out the truth?: On performing a reverse image search on some of the keyframes of the video, we came across a Facebook post from 30 June 2019.

• The post carried the same viral video and mentioned the location as Diavata, Greece and date as '04-05-19'.

• It also mentioned that the video shows refugees.

• Taking a cue, we performed a relevant keyword search and found several old reports about a clash between migrants and police.

• The reports shared on 5 April 2019 by Reuters, The Indian Express, The New York Times, and BBC stated that hundreds of migrants gathered in a field near a refugee camp in northern Greece.

• A report in the Daily Mail said that some migrants set up fires to disperse the fumes left by the tear gas shells.

• The police clashed with the migrants when they stopped several people from illegally crossing through the Balkans to northern Europe.

• It also stated that this was a follow-up reaction to the viral rumours about the restrictions being lifted, which kept the migrants from travelling to Northern Europe.

• We also found a picture on Getty Images of a woman with her two children, one in a pink jacket and another in a black stroller, which matched the one seen in the viral video.

What about the current forest fires in Greece?: Greece witnessed deadly wildfires for two weeks starting on 17 July.

• These were finally abated on 28 July.

• This also resulted in rising temperatures and strong winds which killed five people, destroyed farms and homes.

Conclusion: An old video from Greece showing a clash between the police and the migrants is being falsely shared as 'illegal migrants' starting the forest fires.

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