Claim: A social media video shows the scene of a bus accident taking Umrah pilgrims to Makkah in Saudi Arabia.
Fact: The video is misleading. The incident occurred, but the video is from 2017, when an oil tanker caught fire in the Aqaba Shaar area of Saudi Arabia.
On 28 March 2023, a Facebook user posted a video with an Urdu caption that translated into English reads, “Sad news: 20 people died on the spot and 29 were injured in the bus accident of Umrah pilgrims.”
The video refers to the bus accident that took place on 27 March 2023 in the southern province of Asir, bordering Yemen. According to some media reports, 20 people were killed, and 29 were injured when a bus carrying Umrah pilgrims collided with a bridge, overturned, and caught fire.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check conducted a reverse image search on the video keyframes and found an Arabic-language news report by Rasad News containing a screengrab of the same video published on 24 June 2017.
The news report, translated into English, reads, “Balvidio: The fire at the fuel tanker in the Aqaba of Shaar Basir.” The report also states, “A video clip of a traffic accident is on social media that took place in Aqaba Shaar in Asir region, where a tanker intended for the transport of gasoline overturned and was carrying a large amount of fuel.”
A further keyword search lead to another news report by a Saudi news outlet that states, “A 32-ton fuel tanker met with an accident on Aqaba Shaar Road, and the driver died of burns.”
Al-Arabiya also posted the same video in their news story in which they quoted that the vehicle in the accident that took place was an oil tanker.
Virality
The misleading claim was also shared by leading media outlets including ARY News, Mojo Story, and Urdu News 18.
On Facebook, the video and the aforementioned screengrabs can be seen here, here, and here.
Conclusion: The video of a bus on fire is not from the Umrah pilgrims bus accident in Saudi Arabia but is from a 2017 oil tanker accident that leads to the death of one person.