Video shows a Russian pilgrimage, not Israelis evacuating over Iran strikes
Israel's attack on Iran on June 13, 2025, triggered retaliatory measures by Iran and turned the decades-long enmity between the two into a rapidly-spiralling military conflict. A video compilation circulating on Facebook in Ethiopia claims to show Israelis fleeing cities en masse following a warning from Iran. However, this is false: the video shows footage from the Velikoretsky religious pilgrimage in Russia, which took place earlier this month, as well as people setting off en masse to collect a medicinal fungus on a mountainside in Nepal.
The text accompanying the video post in Amharic reads: 'Israelis leave cities due to Iran's warning to evacuate their cities.'
Image
Screenshot of the false post, taken on June 19, 2025
'Happy trip,' reads the English text overlay, accompanied by an emoji of the Israeli flag.
The 29-second video is composed of three clips divided into two sections.
In the top half of the screen, hundreds of people are seen walking in a hilly, dry landscape.
In the bottom half of the screen, a crowd of people are shown walking down a street, all headed in the same direction and most of them wearing large backpacks. Then, a crowd is seen from above crossing a bridge.
The video was published on June 17, 2025, and has been shared more than 190 times since.
A similar post was also posted here on Facebook and shared more than 5,000 times.
Israel-Iran conflict
After decades of bad blood and a long shadow war, Israel launched a massive bombing campaign on 13 June 2025, to which Iran responded with a barrage of missiles and drones.
AFP reported that as of June 19, 2025, more than 200 Iranians and Israelis were killed in the missile attacks on both sides, with hundreds more wounded (archived here).
A hospital in southern Israel was hit when Iran fired a barrage of missiles, while the Israeli army said it had hit an "inactive nuclear reactor" in Arak, Iran.
International media also reported that on June 15, 2025, Iranian forces warned Israelis to leave their country in the face of increasing rocket attacks (archived here).
However, the video does not show Israelis fleeing their cities.
Velikoretsky pilgrimage
AFP Fact Check used the video verification tool InVID-WeVerify to conduct reverse image searches on keyframes from the video.
For the footage of the crowd walking in the street and across a bridge, the search results include an X post from June 6, 2025 (archived here).
Важное событие, о котором МОЛЧАТ практически все СМИ
22 тысячи православных русских людей идут Великорецким крестным ходом. Идут во славу Христа, Богородицы и Николая Угодника
22 тыс человек оставили дела и работу, чтобы несколько дней молиться Господу о прощении грехов
pic.twitter.com/bIpu38fMJk — olga_1205 (@k_ollga) June 6, 2025
Text in Russian accompanying the video indicates that it shows thousands of Russians who took part in the Velikoretsky religious pilgrimage earlier this month.
The Velikoretsky is a Russian Orthodox procession that takes place in early June every year, covering 110 miles (177 kilometres) and passing through 12 locations in the Kirov region (archived here).
The official website for the city of Kirov featured a story about the pilgrimage held earlier this month on June 3, 2025, which includes a picture corresponding to the footage (archived here).
Image
Screenshots of the image from Kirov's website (left) and the false post, taken on June 18, 2025
Meanwhile, search results for the clip of people walking in the hills established that it was originally posted on Telegram on June 2, 2025, more than a week before the start of the Israeli-Iranian conflict.
The clip shows a crowd of people in search of a medical fungus known as Yarsagumba around Mount Dolpa in western Nepal.
Every year, people head to the highlands of Dolpa to harvest Yarsagumba, a rare and highly valued medicinal fungus (archived here).
Neither of the three clips is related to Israel or the ongoing conflict with Iran.
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