Mosque destroyed in Syria airstrike, not by earthquake in Morocco

Published on October 6, 2023 at 09:20
3 min read
By AFP Pakistan

An old image of a man standing atop a ladder attached to a destroyed building has circulated thousands of times alongside posts falsely claiming it shows the call to prayer being recited after a mosque collapsed during the deadly quake in Morocco in September 2023. In fact, the image is a screenshot from a 2017 video taken in Syria -- the mosque had been razed by Russian airstrikes. The claim is the latest in a plethora of misinformation to emerge in the wake of the Moroccan disaster.

"A mosque was demolished in an earthquake in Morocco, but the call to prayer continued from there five times a day," reads Urdu-language text overlaid on an image shared on Facebook on September 13, 2023.

The post, which has been shared more than 2,900 times, shows a man perched atop the wreckage of a building using a bent ladder.

The post was uploaded a day after a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck Morocco near the tourist hub of Marrakesh, killing nearly 3,000 people, injuring another 5,600 and flattening entire villages.

A screenshot taken on September 28, 2023 of the false Facebook post.

The photo has been shared alongside similar false claims on Facebook here, here and here, as well as on X, formerly known as Twitter, here and here.

In fact, the mosque seen in the image is located just outside of the Syrian city of Aleppo and was destroyed by a Russian airstrike in 2016.

'Russian bombardment'

A Google reverse image search found the picture corresponds to a scene in a video uploaded to YouTube on June 11, 2017 by a channel called Hayan Media Office (archived link).

The Arabic-language title reads: "Hayan: Raising the Maghrib call to prayer at #Sheikh Qasim Mosque 6/10/2017."

The Maghrib is the fourth of the five daily prayers in Islam. The Sheikh Qasim Mosque is located in a town called Hayan north of Aleppo.

Below is a screenshot comparison between the false post (left) and the video on YouTube (right):

Screenshot comparison between the false post (left) and the video on YouTube (right)

Further searches on Google found corresponding scenes showing the rubble of the same mosque, taken from a different angle, uploaded to the Facebook page of a Syrian documentary production company called AMC on February 15, 2016 (archived links here and here).

"The noon call to prayer was issued from Sheikh Qasim Grand Mosque in the town of Hayan in the countryside north of Aleppo, after the building was completely destroyed by Russian bombardment," says the Arabic-language caption on this clip.

Aleppo was once a rebel stronghold during the Syrian civil war -- which began in 2011 -- and Russian airstrikes helped government forces capture the city in 2015 and 2016 (archived link).

Moscow conducted airstrikes on Aleppo and surrounding areas from early February 2016, killing hundreds, Al-Jazeera reported (archived link).

The same distinctive features of the wreckage, including the ladder, archways and section of roof hanging off can be seen in the AMC video.

Below is a screenshot comparison between the false post (left) and the AMC video (right) with corresponding features marked by AFP:

A screenshot comparison between the false post (left) and a 2016 Facebook video (right) with similarities marked in matching coloured circles by AFP

Similar footage from Turkish public broadcaster TRT posted on YouTube on February 11, 2016 also shows the mosque among devastation left by Russian airstrikes during Syria's civil war (archived link).

Below is a screenshot of the TRT report's 28-second mark showing the ruined building.

A screenshot taken on September 29, 2023 of a report on Russian airstrikes in Syria by Turkish broadcaster TRT ( AFP)

AFP has previously debunked other misinformation surrounding the Morocco earthquake, including here and here.

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