Fact Check: Children in Sudan cry at their mother’s grave? No, video is AI-generated

Hyderabad: A short video clip on social media claims to show two children hugging their mother’s grave and crying in Sudan, allegedly amid the country’s ongoing conflict.

The emotional visuals have triggered widespread sympathy online, with users presenting the clip as a real-life tragedy from the war-torn region.

One X user shared the video with the caption, “Two lonely children of Sudan are crying at their mother’s grave, saying, “Oh mother, I’m tired, why don’t you answer me? I’m hungry, you’ve left us alone.’” (Translated from Hindi) (Archive)

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The viral video is not real and has been generated using Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Source of the video

A search for credible news reports, humanitarian documentation or verified footage from Sudan yielded no evidence of any such incident involving children mourning at their mother’s grave.

The absence of reporting from international media outlets, aid agencies or on-ground journalists raised initial doubts about the video’s authenticity.

Analysis of the video

A closer visual examination of the clip further revealed multiple inconsistencies.

In several frames, their hands and bodies merge incorrectly, creating visible occlusion errors, an artefact commonly associated with AI-generated videos. Additionally, shadows and depth cues in the scene do not align consistently with the children’s movements.

To corroborate these findings, NewsMeter analysed the video using AI-detection tools, including Hive Moderation and Deepfake-O-Meter. Both platforms flagged the clip as AI-generated with high confidence scores.

The video claiming to show children crying at their mother’s grave in Sudan is not real. It is an AI-generated clip. Therefore, NewsMeter concludes that the claim is false.