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| - Fact Check: Is this little boy crossing into Jordan alone after losing his family in Syria war?
Many Facebook users claimed that a four-year-old boy was migrating alone from Syria to Jordan when a UNHCR team found him. However, India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim to be misleading. This is a five-year-old picture. The boy was indeed migrating from Syria, but he was not alone and was moving with a group of people.
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India Today Fact Check
The boy was not alone; he was with a group and temporarily separated from his family.
A picture of a little boy carrying a large bag in his hand in the middle of a desert has made people emotional on social media.
Many Facebook users claimed that the four-year-old boy was migrating alone from Syria to Jordan when a UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) team found him. He had lost his mother and sister in the Syrian civil war and was carrying their clothes in the bag, the viral post said.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim to be misleading. This is a five-year-old picture. The boy was indeed migrating from Syria, but he was not alone and was moving with a group of people. He was temporarily separated from his family but later reunited with his mother.
AFWA investigation
Several users posted the same content on Facebook. This same post had gone viral earlier in 2018 on Twitter as well.
Not only that, but this particular picture of the boy and the news associated with it had gone viral back in 2014. This was reported by various international news media.
We found the detailed news about the boy on the websites of 'The Guardian' and 'The Telegraph', published in 2014.
According to these reports, the Syrian boy was crossing the border with his family. This picture caught the attention of international media when a UNHCR staff Andrew Harper tweeted this picture on February 16, 2014.
Here 4 year old Marwan, who was temporarily separated from his family, is assisted by UNHCR staff to cross #Jordan pic.twitter.com/w4s2mrNnMY Andrew Harper (@And_Harper) February 16, 2014
According to 'The Guardian' report, a senior anchor of CNN International retweeted it, saying, UN staff found 4-year-old Marwan crossing desert alone after being separated from family fleeing #Syria.
Two days later, Harper tweeted another photo of the boy to clear the air. In this tweet, he showed a different photo where the boy can be identified with a group of people.
Thanks to Jared 4 this shot showing Marwan at the back of this group of @refugees. He is separated - he is not alone. pic.twitter.com/vq2JpxjT8j Andrew Harper (@And_Harper) February 18, 2014
In yet another tweet, he wrote that the boy had reunited with his mother.
According to the UN, several thousand children had fled homes due to the war in Syria and took refuge in neighboring countries such as Jordan and Turkey. Many of them separated from their families.
But the viral claim about this particular picture is misleading. The child was not alone in the desert and after the initial separation, he was reunited with his family.
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