What was claimed
A clip shows Muslim migrants having a picnic at a cemetery in Ireland.
Our verdict
This footage was actually taken at a multifaith cemetery in Brussels, Belgium.
Video shows scenes in a cemetery in Belgium, not Ireland
A video is being shared on social media with claims it shows “Muslim migrants having a picnic in a cemetery” in Ireland, but it actually shows scenes in Belgium.
The clip shows a group of people, including some wearing hijabs and others in traditional dress, sitting and talking in a cemetery, with food and drinks laid out on what appears to be a grave. One post sharing the clip on Instagram has overlaid text saying “Ireland” alongside an Irish flag emoji, and a caption saying: “Something VERY serious is unfolding in Ireland right now. A video of Muslim migrants having a picnic in a CEMETERY has caused National Outrage.”
Another post sharing the footage on X (formerly Twitter), with more than 1,100 shares, claims it shows a “crowd of Muslim’s [sic] having a party in an Irish Cemetery sitting on graves with rubbish everywhere, I’m sorry but I find this extremely disrespectful to the dead.”
But this clip does not show scenes in Ireland. It actually shows people in a multifaith cemetery in Brussels, Belgium.
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What is happening in the video?
We matched the scene to other clips posted on YouTube on Friday 6 June, which was Eid al-Adha—an annual three day festival about sacrifice celebrated by Muslims. One of these clips is over three minutes long and has a caption in Arabic saying “Eid atmosphere, may you be well every year”, while the other, shorter clip mentions a “family trip to the cemetery” (translated by Google).
The white tombstone and lavender bush visible at 5 seconds into the shorter YouTube clip can be seen from a similar angle in the social media clip, and the white car seen in both YouTube videos is also in the background of the social media clip. Other details appear in both the longer YouTube video and the social media clip, including a cream bag with brown straps, a child dressed in pink and a woman wearing a leopard-print dress and a leather jacket.
We know the video on Instagram shows the same location and event as the one in the YouTube clips, and using the extra details visible in these, we were then able to locate this scene to a multifaith cemetery in Brussels.
Geolocating the footage
Around 42 seconds into the longer YouTube clip, a grey building with distinct long, horizontal windows is visible in the distance, which can also be seen in photos of the Intercommunal Multifaith Cemetery of Brussels.
A wooden bandstand structure seen in the background of the YouTube video also appears in photos on the cemetery’s website and, using Google Maps and a map of the cemetery, we confirmed this structure was in the multifaith cemetery, which is an area within the wider Schaerbeek cemetery. The cemetery’s website says that it has Muslim, Christian and Jewish plots available.
Moreover, a spokesperson for the multifaith cemetery confirmed to Full Fact that this scene was taken there on 6 June. The spokesperson said the cemetery’s security had intervened.
Miscaptioned videos are a common type of misinformation we see online. Our guide to identifying misleading videos offers some tips for how to verify content you see yourself before sharing it.
We’ve previously debunked misleading claims that a video showed “migrants” cooking a dog in Dublin and that Ireland was going to create a ‘National Hijab Day’.
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 partly false because the clip shows scenes in Brussels, not Ireland.