A video of a 7-year-old boy being rescued from an August 2023 flood in Tajikistan has been falsely captioned as showing “a traumatized child in Gaza,” as hundreds of children continue to be caught in the crossfire of the Israel-Hamas war that began on Oct. 7, 2023.
“Another traumatized child in Gaza!” reads the caption of a post sharing the dated video on X social media. The video was also widely shared on Facebook.
The video predates the Israel-Hamas war, by at least a month and the image of the child can be traced to a Telegram post dated Sept.1 by an account that describes itself as “video news of Tajikistan.”
The video was also included in a Tajik language video report (0:08 – 0:26) dated Sept.5 by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, titled, “The miraculous rescue of seven-year-old Safiallah from the deadly flood of Romit Gorge.”
The outlet, in a Sept.6 news report identifies the boy in the video as Safiallah Mirzazoda, aged 7, who survived a flood in the city of Vakhdat, Tajikistan and was recovering in hospital.
The report adds that the child was swept away along with members of his family, in a flood on the night of Aug.27 in the village of Choyangaroni Vakhdat.
On Aug. 28, Reuters reported that mudslides triggered by heavy rains had killed 13 people in Tajikistan, according to government estimates.
VERDICT
Miscaptioned. The video predates the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023 and according to news reports from September, it shows a boy rescued from a flood in Tajikistan.
Source : REUTERS
