Ethiopian minister's interview distorted to claim she issued stern warning to Eritrean leader

AFP

5 hours ago

Relations between neighbours Ethiopia and Eritrea have deteriorated in recent months over access to the Red Sea. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki recently accused Ethiopia of preparing for war. Amid the rising tensions, posts published on Facebook with a photo of Isaias purport to show a video of Ethiopian Defence Minister Aisha Mohammed issuing an official warning to the Eritrean leader. Although Aisha discussed unnamed external rivals, neither the original interview nor the misleading video contains an explicit warning aimed at the Eritrean head of state.
The Amharic text accompanying the Facebook post reads: 'Breaking news: Ethiopian Defence Minister Aisha Mohammed has issued an official stern warning to the leader of Shabia.'
Shabia refers to the Eritrean government.
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Screenshot of the misleading post, taken on June 17, 2025
Published on May 31, 2025, the post has been shared more than 220 times.
In the video, which is more than a minute long, Aisha is seen speaking in what looks like an interview. As she talks, a photo of Isaias is displayed, along with clips of Ethiopian troops.
'The Ethiopian army was not built in a way that external rival forces would consider. It is not built to respond to forces operating in Ethiopia and supported by foreign forces,' Aisha says at the beginning of the video in Amharic.
'The army was built to protect Ethiopia from all external forces that intend to violate the country's sovereignty based on any miscalculation,' she adds.
She also outlines the role of the army. 'Local militias can respond appropriately to local clashes that occur here and there. We train the local militias, we equip them, and most importantly, we have people who can defend themselves.'
She continues: 'Ethiopia's army knows that there is no place other than Ethiopia that suits its destiny; it has no ethnicity and believes that Ethiopia is its destiny.'
Aisha then asserts that Ethiopia has a military that is 'committed to protecting Ethiopia 24/7 with a highly reliable capability'.
She concludes by saying that 'Ethiopia's army has developed new military capabilities based on the current international requirements' and that 'the navy force, special brigade and cyber security brigade and others have been installed'.
A similar post was also shared here on Facebook.
Ethio-Eritrean relations
Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993, but a border conflict between 1998 and 2000 killed around 80,000 people (archived here).
Later, after Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office, Ethiopia and Eritrea reached a peace agreement, with Ethiopia accepting a UN-backed border commission decision.
The Eritrean army even allied with Abiy's federal government during the 2020-2022 Tigray war.
However, relations between the two countries have deteriorated recently after landlocked Ethiopia sought access to the Red Sea, with Eritrea accusing it of eyeing its port of Assab.
Speaking during Eritrea's 34th independence anniversary in May 2025, Isaias accused Ethiopia of preparing for another war in the name of accessing the sea (archived here).
However, the claim that Aisha issued a stern warning against Isaias is misleading.
Edited video
AFP Fact Check used the video verification tool InVID-WeVerify to conduct reverse image searches on keyframes from the video.
The results revealed that a longer version of the video was published on the official YouTube channel of the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) on June 2, 2025 (archived here).
Aisha discusses a range of issues, including the army's organisation, duties, military capabilities, and its commitment to upholding the rule of law. She also responds to allegations of human rights violations.
However, in neither the original interview nor the misleading video does Aisha expressly mention or warn the Eritrean leader.
AFP Fact Check established that the Facebook clip contains different sections from Aisha's original interview edited together to give the impression that she was addressing Isaias.
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Screenshots of the original video published by EBC (left) and the misleading version, taken on June 11, 2025
The clip was specifically drawn from three segments of the original interview: minutes 4'27' to 4'44', 5'29' to 6'10', and 26'42' to 27'23'.
The first 55 seconds of the misleading clip came from minutes 26'42' to 27'23' of the original video. In this segment, Aisha was responding to the journalist's question about Ethiopia's alleged portrayal as a country engulfed in a national crisis.
She claimed that unnamed external rivals wrongly viewed the country's rise in the Horn of Africa region as a threat to their national security, explaining that the army is built to protect the country against all forms of external aggression.
The subsequent segment of the misleading clip running from 56 to 62 seconds was lifted from the original video's 4'27' to 4'44' mark. Here, Aisha was discussing the army's mission and professional discipline.
Finally, the concluding part of the misleading clip comes from 5'29' to 6'10' of the original video, during which Aisha spoke about the modern military capabilities of the Ethiopian army and the installation of the special and cyber security brigades.