File photo shows an elephant taking a mud bath at the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage in Pinnawala, about 90 km from the capital Colombo on August 3, 2020. (AFP / Ishara S. Kodikara)

Misleading claim circulates on Facebook about elephant attack in Sri Lanka

This article is more than one year old.
Published on August 11, 2020 at 04:10
2 min read
By AFP Sri Lanka

Three photos have been shared hundreds of times in multiple posts on Facebook alongside a claim they show a child killed by an elephant in a Sri Lankan village in early August 2020. The claim is misleading; the photos have circulated online since 2017 in reports about an elephant attack in central Sri Lanka; in response to the misleading posts, local police said they had received no reports of elephant attacks in the village in early August 2020.

The photos were published here on Facebook on August 1, 2020.

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A screenshot of the misleading Facebook post taken on August 5, 2020

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The post’s Sinhala-language caption translates to English as: "Dear daughter who left this world because of a wild elephant attack, rest in peace. / Five year old Lakshani who was on her way to pre school with her grandmother and younger sister was killed today in Palagala".

Palagala is a village in the Anuradhapura area of Sri Lanka’s North Central province.

The photos have also been shared here, here, here, here and here with a similar claim.

The claim, however, is misleading.

Hoax report

In response to the posts, an officer for Anuradhapura Galkiriyagama Police told AFP on August 4, 2020 that it had not received a report about a child being killed by an elephant in the area “over the past week”.

“Wild elephant attacks are quite common in the area. However, there have not been any incidents that resulted in the death of a child due to an elephant attack recently,” the officer said.

Old photos

A Google reverse image search of the photos in the misleading post found all three were published in this report Sri Lankan news website Hiru News on May 20, 2017.

The Sinhala-language headline translates to English as: “Nirupama closes her eyes forever, after being attacked by an elephant enroute to preschool with grandmother and younger sister”.

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A screenshot of the 2017 Hiru News report

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The article reads in part: “A preschooler was killed and her grandmother and two-year-old younger sister received injuries in an attack by a wild elephant that occurred along the Galkiriyagama - Negampaha road located in the Galkiriyagama police zone.

“The attack had occurred yesterday (May 19) when the child was on her way to preschool with her grandmother...The little girl who unfortunately died in this tragic accident has been identified as Nirupama Lakshani - a four year old who lived in Negampaha, Galkiriyagama.”

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