Fact Check: Images from Syrian civil war shared as condition of Afghan kids after US withdrawal

A set of four pictures showing children carrying bullet shells and mortar rounds is circulating on social media as visuals from Afghanistan. India Today Anti Fake News War Room checks the credibility of these images.

Blame game over the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan continues, with most discussions over the country’s sad state of affairs centring on the United States. The Afghan economy is in ruins, inflation is at an all-time high, and according to reports, poverty and unemployment have forced people to even sell their children and organs to escape starvation.

On social media, a set of four pictures showing children carrying bullet shells and mortar rounds is circulating as visuals from the war-torn country. Claiming to be a reflection of young lives in Afghanistan following the US withdrawal, the accompanying post says, “After 20 years’ war, this is what the #US has brought to the children in #Afghanistan.”

India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim along with the pictures to be misleading. All the pictures are from Syria, taken during the ongoing civil war.

A reverse search on the pictures led us to the website “Middle East Images”. In fact, one of the pictures in the viral tweet was the cover image of an article here, titled “The Shells of War”.

“The Shells of War” is a collection of photographs taken by Ali Haj Suleiman from Syria. It is dedicated exclusively to a scrapyard run by a displaced Syrian man who helps others like him make ends meet by selling shells, mortar rounds, missiles and bullets from conflict zones as scrap metal.

We were able to locate all the four images used in the viral tweet in this album.