What was claimed
Videos show overturned dinghies in the English Channel, including one where over 100 people supposedly died.
Our verdict
These videos aren’t real and were made using artificial intelligence. There are no reports of 100 people dying during a recent attempt to cross the English Channel in a small boat.
Videos liked thousands of times on Facebook supposedly show overturned dinghies in the English Channel.
One such video has been shared with claims that over 100 lives were lost in a single crossing, while another claims 23 are “feared missing”.
But these videos aren’t real and were made with artificial intelligence. And while six people have sadly died in April while attempting to cross the Channel, there are no reports of 100 people dying in one go (although dinghies do sometimes carry this number of people).
According to Oxford University’s Migration Observatory, in 2025, there were 24 confirmed deaths relating to Channel crossings.
When we put the videos through Google’s large language model (LLM) Gemini it told us all of them had a SynthID digital watermark in both the audio and visual components, indicating they were generated or altered with Google AI.
There are also a number of other clues they were made with AI, such as the blurred cliffs in the background and glitches on the debris in the sea.
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We increasingly find ourselves fact checking AI-generated videos. Earlier this week we fact checked similar AI-generated videos supposedly showing the Australian border force at sea.
Before sharing clips such as these, first consider whether they come from a verifiable and trustworthy source. Our guide to spotting AI content, and toolkit on how to identify bad information, can help you do this.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because these videos aren’t real and were made using artificial intelligence.
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Subscribe to weekly email newsletters from Full Fact for updates on politics, immigration, health and more. Our fact checks are free to read but not to produce, so you will also get occasional emails about fundraising and other ways you can help. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy.