Visuals of infant killed in Parachinar amid Kurram violence

Rating Justification

The iVerify Pakistan team has reviewed this content and determined that it is false.

To reach this conclusion, the iVerify Pakistan team conducted a reverse image search of the viral visuals.

Posts from multiple users on various social media platforms since November 21, 2024, shared visuals of an infant, claiming that the child was killed in the recent violence in Kurram district. However, the visuals are old.

A convoy of approximately 200 passenger vans in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Lower Kurram district was attacked while travelling from Parachinar to Peshawar on November 21. The assault resulted in 42 fatalities and over 30 injuries, according to officials.

The attack seemed to be a retaliation for an incident on October 12, 2024, that claimed 15 lives in the region. The latest violence intensified sectarian tensions in the area, further escalating the conflict.

HOW IT STARTED

On Nov 21, a video of a crying infant was shared on Facebook shared as part of a reel which also showed a dead infant’s body in the bottom corner.

The reel was posted with the caption: “In the government convoy on November 21, 2024, there were also some children who were shot in the mouths while they were in their mothers’ laps. One of them is this child, who is said to be eight months old.

The reel, shared by a page dharing updates related to Parachinar, garnered 5,300 reactions and 1,000 shares. The same video was also shared here and here on Facebook.

On Instagram, the image appeared in a slideshow shared by a content creator on Nov 22. In the graphics, the infant’s picture was accompanied by the caption: “This six-month-old baby is not from Gaza; he is from Parachinar. His six-month-old body was struck with bullets just because he was Shia.”

The post received 12,179 likes.

The image of the dead infant was also shared on X on Nov 22 here and here, with 19,800 and 2,445 views respectively and hashtags related to Parachinar and violence against the Shia community.

METHODOLOGY

A fact-check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim due to its spread across multiple social media platforms, keen public interest in the ongoing tribal tensions in Kurram district and to check the spread of misinformation before it becomes viral.

A reverse image search for the picture of the dead infant led to a post on X by journalist Sana Batool, who shared the picture on April 25, 2017. That post also linked the image to Parachinar, saying that it showed a six-month old killed.

Meanwhile, a reverse image search for the video of the crying infant led to a YouTube video posted on June 10, 2021.

Furthermore, neither of the visuals were shared in any news reports by credible media outlets on the Kurram violence.

The sources and context of the visuals could not be conclusively determined but them being shared in previous years does show that they have nothing to do with the recent bout of violence in Kurram and were shared to misguide the public amid a tense situation.

FACT-CHECK STATUS: FALSE

The claim regarding visuals of an infant killed in Parachinar amid recent violence in Kurram district is false.

The visuals are old and entirely unrelated to the current tensions between tribes in Kurram district.

Evidence and References

April 25, 2017, X post of journalist Sana Batool:
https://perma.cc/9E9Z-59RS

June 10, 2021, YouTube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=9Tv-gVUSaxs