Post misrepresents decades-old photo of child with dead father in DRC as having been taken recently

This article is more than one year old.
Published on November 21, 2023 at 12:38
3 min read
By James OKONG'O, AFP Kenya

Renewed clashes in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) involving government troops and the reconstituted rebel group M23 have led to soaring civilian deaths and displacement in the country. A graphic image showing a child crying while clinging onto a man lying on the ground was posted on social media alongside a claim that it shows the current “genocide” in the country. But the post’s context is misleading: while the photo is genuine, it was taken in 1994 and shows a Rwandan boy next to his father who died of cholera in DRC.

“Congo is currently going through genocide,” reads a post that was published on X (formerly Twitter) on November 13, 2023.

Screenshot showing the misleading post, taken on November 20, 2023

The post has since been shared more than 1,600 times and attracted over 3,000 likes.

“Please pray for Congo! This is 2023! (sic),” reads the caption on another post published with the photo on Facebook.

Screenshot showing the misleading post, taken on November 21, 2023

The image was also shared on Instagram and elsewhere on X.

Some of the posts implore people to give attention to the plight of the Congolese as wars in the Middle East and Ukraine dominate headlines.

DRC conflict

After lying dormant for years, the M23 rebel group launched an offensive in late 2021 and conquered swathes of North Kivu province in eastern DRC, displacing over a million people (archived here).

M23 is a Tutsi-led group that traces its lineage to earlier rebel movements in eastern DRC.

Militias have plagued the volatile region for decades, a legacy of regional wars that flared in the 1990s and 2000s.

The rebel group was defeated in 2013 after seizing the Congolese city of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, with many of its fighters taking refuge in neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda.

In 2021, M23 fighters reemerged, demanding that DRC honour a previously signed agreement allowing their integration into the army, among other issues.

As the new conflict expands, the rebel group has justified itself differently, claiming now that it is defending the Tutsi minority in eastern DRC.

On October 26, 2023, M23 rebels launched a new offensive north of Goma (archived here).

Residents of Bambo in eastern DRC flee after M26 rebels attacked the town on October 26, 2023 ( AFP / ALEXIS HUGUET)

But the image circulating on social media was not taken during the current conflict in the country.

Old photo

In a previous debunk, AFP Fact Check found that the image depicts events from nearly three decades ago in the DRC (archived here).

A reverse image search traced the photo to the Getty Images photo archives. According to the caption, it shows a Rwandan child crying while clinging to his father who had died of cholera in 1994 in Zaire, now the DRC (archived here).

“The two had fled the Hutu-Tutsi violence in Rwanda and come to Zaire for safety,” the caption reads.

Screenshot of the original photo and its caption from the Getty Images photo archives

During the 1994 genocide, thousands of Rwandans fled the country to seek refuge in eastern DRC (archived here). The 100-day conflict resulted in at least 800,000 deaths (archived here).

The photo is credited to photographer David Turnley who was working for the US newspaper Detroit Free Press.

The image was also published separately in a 2014 photo essay by the German news site Der Spiegel retracing memorable historical photos from the Corbis photo agency (archived here). It described the photo, credited to Turnley, with the same details as those used in the Getty Images archives.

Turnley is yet to reply to AFP Fact Check’s request for comment.

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