No, the mosque was ablaze in January 2019

This article is more than one year old.
Published on July 31, 2019 at 05:30
2 min read
By AFP Indonesia

An image of a burning mosque has been shared tens of thousands of times in Facebook posts in June and July claiming a mosque caught fire “just now”. The claim is false; the image shows the Belopa Grand Mosque in the eastern Indonesian province of South Sulawesi which caught fire in January 2019.

This June 23, 2019, post, which has been shared more than 20,000 times, and this post on June 24, 2019, shared more than 5,700 times, contain an image that shows a mosque with thick smoke billowing from its green dome.

Below is a screenshot of one of the posts:

Screenshot of a misleading post

The Indonesian language caption reads in English as: “THIS MOSQUE CAUGHT FIRE JUST NOW.. IF YOU ARE A MOSLEM COMMENT AMEN...Share this to 3 groups so many people will pray for it.”

The same image was also published on July 20, 2019, in this post with the same claim.

However the incident took place at the start of the year, in January 2019.

Google reverse image searches found the exact same photo in this January 29, 2019, report by news outlet KabarMakassar.com.

Below is a screenshot of the report where the same photo of the burning mosque can be seen:

Screenshot of news report containing the same photo as in the misleading post

Translated to English, the KabarMakassar.com’s headline reads: “Residents panic when the dome of the Belopa Mosque in Luwu catches fire”.

The photo caption reads: “Belopa Grand Mosque, Luwu district, caught fire, Tuesday (29/1).”

The first paragraph reads: “Residents of Belopa were shocked by fire that soared from the Belopa Grand Mosque, Luwu district. Fire burned the dome of the mosque at 11.40am Central Indonesian Time.”

Belopa is the capital of Luwu district, in South Sulawesi province. The official website of the Luwu district government can be accessed here.

This Google user’s image tagged to Belopa Grand Mosque’s location on Google Maps in March 2019 corresponds to the photos of the burning mosque.

Below is a screenshot of the mosque photo on Google Maps:

Screenshot of the Belopa Grand Mosque photo on Google Maps

The same incident was reported by other media outlets on the same day -- January 29 -- for example here, here and here.

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