Fact Check: This heartbreaking video of orphaned children is not from ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict
India Today
We found the video of orphaned children has nothing to do with Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The children in the video were from Iraq and Syria.
A heartbreaking video of two children, a girl and a boy, was shared widely on social media with hashtags related to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis.
As per the subtitle in the video, both children, when asked about their family, said they lost their fathers in the war. The girl broke into tears when asked if she was getting enough food. The boy was also in tears when asked why he did not have a jacket. He said his family could not afford one anymore.
The archived versions of similar posts can be seen here, here, and here.
The India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) found the video has nothing to do with Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The children in the video were from Iraq and Syria.
We ran a reverse search of the keyframes of the video and found the video of the girl uploaded by several YouTube channels in 2017.
We also found the same clip in a four-minute-long documentary titled “Malak: The Girl Who Stumbled Out of a War Zone and Stole Our Hearts,” uploaded to the YouTube channel of an aid organisation called Preemptive Love.
