On October 20, Syrian-Russian forces launched an attack on the city of Ariha, south of the rebel-held city of Idlib, northwest Syria. Large-caliber artillery shells killed 12 civilians, including four children, as they targeted residential neighborhoods at the time students were leaving for school.
Ali Haj Suleiman, a Syrian photographer based in Idlib, filmed one of the young victim’s family members collapsing in grief as he sees her dead body as a result of artillery shelling by the Assad regime, telling Rudaw English on Friday that fake stories using his clip are “an exploitation of the suffering and oppression experienced by the Syrian people.”
A horrific massacre in the city of Ariha, south of the city of Idlib, northwest Syria, which killed 12 people, including four children, a woman,
— Ali Haj Suleiman (@AliHajSuleiman) October 22, 2021
Ariha 20-10-2021 pic.twitter.com/NG6w1iO37c
Suleiman explained how he had been browsing his Twitter account on Thursday, when he noticed that increasing numbers of people were tagging him in posts and comments on the social media site. Taking a closer look, he was shocked to see that they had been using his video to falsely claim it was footage of a child who had died from taking the vaccine.
The disinformation first originated in Brazil, Suleiman believes, but has since been shared beyond the South American country.
Quite how the blood-stained floor of the hospital can be explained in the false interpretation is unclear, but widespread circulation and comments appear to have taken the lie for fact. Contrary to other interpretations, the man who bids farewell to the child in the video is not her father, because he was also killed in the same attack, Suleiman said.
“Children are being murdered by pharmacists, corrupt politicians, the press, doctors,” reads a comment under one fake article. Under a different website, “Another person made angry enough to kill all who vaxx ppl and all who say this vaxx is ok.”
“It was very upsetting when I found out about this,” Suleiman admitted, adding that many others “have falsified the truth of the video, but their posts have been deleted.”
The Syrian photographer hopes that all of the fake stories will be removed, but he doesn’t expect the sites to do so of their own accord. Calling out the incorrect posts and articles, he says, is one way of restoring the truth.
Rumours, myths and misinformation about COVID-19 have spread as quickly as the disease itself, the AFP Factcheck seeking to debunk disinformation states.
In grim irony, Syria has one of the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rates in the world. Compared to 49.8% of the world’s population, just 4.9% of the people still based in the country have been vaccinated by the health system ravaged by war for 10 years.
According to figures from the United Nations, over 350,000 people have been killed, and displaced around 12 million, in the decade-long conflict that began with the regime’s repression of anti-government protests. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has estimated that around 6.6 million Syrians are refugees.
The heavy cost of the Syrian war is felt across the Middle East region.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) published a report on Thursday into the humanitarian situation facing Syrians between July and September last year, noting its collaborative effort with local authorities in the Kurdistan Region’s Dohuk province to provide 41,938 refugees with access to water and sanitation. In Erbil, the report says, UNICEF worked in partnership with the city’s surrounding water directorate to secure access to safe water for 30,082 refugees in the province.
A Human Rights Watch report published in December into the October shelling which killed the young child presented evidence of the attack to push the international community to impose targeted sanctions on commanders implicated in war crimes, but this has not yet happened.
