Decade-old image misrepresented as Filipinos arrested in Sabah migrant crackdown

"TAUSUG INSIDE THE DETENTION CELL IN SABAH," reads overlaid text on an image shared in a Facebook post on July 25, 2026.

The photo appears to show a group of men lying on a jam-packed floor, as seen behind a silhouette of cell bars.

The post's caption expressed concern over the "continued arrests and deportation of Tausugs" in Malaysia's Sabah state, and called on the Philippine government to intervene diplomatically to protect the rights of the ethnic group from the southern Philippines.

Image

Screenshot of false post taken July 29, 2026, with red x added by AFP

Malaysian media organisation The Star reported that Sabah's immigration authorities deported about 260 Filipinos from July 15 following operations targeting undocumented migrants that also included Chinese, Pakistanis and Indonesians (archived link).

Sabah has long been connected to the southern Philippines through migration and a long-dormant territorial claim dating back to the former Sultanate of Sulu (archived link).

User comments indicated that they believed the photo showed Filipinos detained in Malaysia.

"Justice for Filipinos in Sabah. What is our government doing about this," read one comment, while another user wrote: "Marcos is useless, what can anyone expect from him?" referring to Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos.

The same image also circulated in posts claiming it showed Rohingya refugees in Malaysia. 

Malaysia hosts more than 215,000 refugees and asylum seekers registered with the UN refugee agency, including more than 126,000 members of Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya minority, making them the country's largest refugee community (archived link).

But the photo was taken by AFP a decade ago in Quezon city, Philippines and shows neither the Tausug or Rohingya in Malaysia's Sabah State.

2016 Manila prison

A reverse image search on Yandex found a matching image published on an article by British broadcaster Channel 4 News (archived link).

The August 24, 2016 report was titled: "Rodrigo Duterte: on the frontline of the Philippines' drug war", while the video's thumbnail matches the circulating image of the crowded area.

Image

Screenshot comparison of false post (L) with photo published by Channel 4 News

Subsequent searches led to a similar photo published by Vietnamese media organisation Congly on November 8, 2016 (archived link).

The photo was credited to AFP.

Part of the caption reads: "This picture taken on July 21, 2016 shows inmates sleeping at the open basketball court inside the Quezon City jail in Manila."

Image

This picture taken on July 21, 2016 shows inmates sleeping at the open basketball court inside the Quezon City jail in Manila. (AFP / NOEL CELIS)

Former president Rodrigo Duterte waged a bloody war on crime in 2016, which resulted in a surge of arrests that led to severe overcrowding in the Philippines' already congested penal facilities (archived link).

Sabah's Immigration Department issued a statement on July 26 dismissing claims that overcrowded detention conditions had led to the deaths of Philippine detainees were "untrue, unfounded and misleading" (archived link).

"The pictures that went viral on social media are not pictures that refer to any Immigration Detention Depot under the supervision of the Sabah Malaysian Immigration Department," the Malay-language statement read.

They added the Philippine nationals at Sabah immigration depots were "in good condition" and were granted basic necessities while awaiting deportation.

AFP has previously debunked misinformation linked to the Philippines' ties to Sabah.