This video has circulated in posts since August about a boy who fell off a boat in Bangladesh

This article is more than one year old.
Published on December 3, 2021 at 05:11
2 min read
By AFP Sri Lanka

After six children were killed in a ferry accident in Sri Lanka in November, a video circulated in Facebook and TikTok posts claiming it showed a boy rescued from the capsized vessel. The claim is false; the clip has circulated in posts about a boy who fell from a boat in Bangladesh since at least August.

The video, which was posted on TikTok on November 23, shows a boy crying for help as he struggles to keep his head above the water, before a boat approaches and he is pulled to safety.

Tamil-language text superimposed on the clip reads: "The sound of your cry is heartbreaking. Students who went to study met with accident in Trincomalee".

Six people, including four children who were en route to a school, were killed after a ferry capsized on November 23 in the town of Kinniya, Trincomalee in eastern Sri Lanka.

Following the accident, angry residents attacked a parliamentarian's home and protested before the local government body claiming the failure to complete a bridge construction led to the accident, local media reported.

Screenshot of the TikTok post captured on November 27, 2021

The video circulated in various other Facebook and TikTok posts that claimed it was filmed after the Trincomalee ferry accident, including here, here and here.

However, the claim is false. The video predates the accident by at least two months.

A Google reverse image search of key frames from the video found a longer version of the footage showing the boy's rescue in a YouTube video posted August 28.

The Bengali-language title reads: "A child fell in the whirlpool of Chandpur estuary!! See what happened after."

The description reads: "On 28th August 2021, a child fell off a trawler into the whirlpool of the Chandpur estuary. Later, by the grace of Allah, the child was saved!"

Chandpur is a district in central Bangladesh.

The video circulating in misleading social media posts corresponds to the first 29 seconds of the YouTube clip from August.

Screenshot comparison between the video circulating in misleading posts (L) and the YouTube video from August (R)

The video shows people speaking Bengali, including a bystander who urges rescuers to take the boy to hospital.

The clip was shared in a similar post in August here.

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