Old Photos of Migrants Drowning Near Tunisia’s Coastline Go Viral
The Claim
Photos show a group of Palestinian Gaza refugees traveling by boat from Turkey to Greece.
News posted on
Emerging story
Photos claiming to show drowning Palestinian refugees near the Greek coast have recently circulated on social media accounts and pages.
Photo Description: The screenshots depict allegedly drowning refugees in the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar investigated the circulated photos and found them misleading. These photos are outdated; they do not refer to the most recent incident of the sinking dinghy off the Greek coast. The images, taken by Reuters photojournalist Darrin Zammit, show migrants off the Tunisian coast on July 31 and August 1 this year.
Reuters has made the following comment on most of the photos: “A migrant cries for help after jumping off an overcrowded wooden boat and trying to swim to the German NGO migrant rescue ship Sear-Watch 3 during a rescue operation in international waters off the coast of Tunisia, in the western Mediterranean Sea, July 31/August 1.”
The photos have resurfaced in the following Saturday's news of a sinking boat off the coast of Greece that sailed from Turkey to Greece. The boat mostly carried Gaza migrants, with several still missing and a few rescued.
Translated by: Ahmed N. A. Almassri
