Incident 1087: Campaign Featuring Purported AI-Generated Audio Attributed to Omar al-Bashir Spreads During Sudanese Conflict

Description: Beginning in late August 2023, a TikTok channel called The Voice of Sudan circulated purported AI-generated audio claiming to be leaked recordings of former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir. Experts identified several recordings as voice-cloned fabrications, derived from unrelated broadcasts by a political commentator. The campaign emerged during Sudan's civil war and appeared designed to influence political perceptions. TikTok later removed the account for violating synthetic media policies.
Editor Notes: Although major reporting on this incident appeared in October 2023, available evidence indicates that the AI-generated audio impersonations of Omar al-Bashir began circulating on TikTok in late August 2023. The incident date has therefore been set as as 08/20/2023 to reflect the likely onset of the campaign. This date is approximate and based on the earliest known activity referenced in the BBC's 10/04/2023 investigation. It was added to the AI Incident Database on 05/31/2025. Please refer to Incident 1089 for wider context.

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Incident Stats

Incident ID
1087
Report Count
3
Incident Date
2023-08-20
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Applied Taxonomies
MIT

MIT Taxonomy Classifications

Machine-Classified
Taxonomy Details

Risk Subdomain

4.1. Disinformation, surveillance, and influence at scale

Risk Domain

  1. Malicious Actors & Misuse

Entity

Human

Timing

Post-deployment

Intent

Intentional

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AI: Voice cloning tech emerges in Sudan civil war
bbc.com · 2023

A campaign using artificial intelligence to impersonate Omar al-Bashir, the former leader of Sudan, has received hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok, adding online confusion to a country torn apart by civil war.

An anonymous account ha…

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AI-driven impersonation campaign of Sudan’s ex-leader goes viral on TikTok
dig.watch · 2023

In a recent report by the BBC, an anonymous campaign employing artificial intelligence to impersonate Sudan's former leader, Omar al-Bashir, has gained widespread attention on TikTok, amplifying online confusion in a country already grappli…

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The Deepfake is a powerful weapon in the war in Sudan
africanarguments.org · 2024

n April 2024, an image of a building engulfed in flames went viral on Facebook in Sudan. The image was widely shared with captions that claimed the building was part of Al-Jazeera University in Wad Madani city, and the Sudanese army had bom…

Variants

A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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