With every event of global interest, social media users circulate posts claiming that the famous cartoon series “The Simpsons” had previously predicted the same event.
The last of these posts claims that the series predicted, in an episode shown years ago, the current conflict in Sudan.
However, the claim is wrong, and the picture circulated is from a scene about events that took place in Sudan in the nineteenth century.
In the picture, one of the “The Simpsons” characters appears with a pigeon next to him. And it was written in the translation at the bottom of the screen, “It may carry news about the siege of Khartoum.”
The publishers said that the series predicted in one of its previous episodes the current conflict in Sudan.
The battles have been taking place since April 15 between the army, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces, led by Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, in a power struggle after they were allies since the 2021 coup, during which they overthrew civilians.
The battles have so far killed more than 500 people and wounded thousands, according to a statement by the Federal Ministry of Health in Sudan, but the number of victims may be more than that as a result of the ongoing fighting.
The reality of the scene
But the talk that the series “The Simpsons” predicted the current conflict in Sudan is not true.
A reverse search for the circulating image leads to sites that include the same scene, noting that it is from an episode of the series entitled “How Muched is That Birdie in the Window”.
This episode is the seventh of the twenty-second season of “The Simpsons”, and it premiered on November 28, 2010.
The episode revolves around Bart, a member of the “Simpsons” family, taking care of a homing pigeon that had an injured wing.
Bart became close to the bird and decided to train it to carry messages after watching a clip about the role of homing pigeons in World War II.
In one of the scenes of the episode, the pigeon reaches Mr. Burns, who appears in the picture of the flyers, and then he says the sentence, “Maybe the bird will bring updates about the siege of Khartoum.”
Going back to history, the siege of Khartoum is an event that took place between 1884 and 1885 and has nothing to do with recent developments.
