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| - Fact Check: Afghan Army chopper's heart-stirring flood rescue operation shared as Pakistan incident
A video of Jawans risking their lives to rescue flood victims in Balochistan has gone viral. The rescue operation was not conducted by the Pakistan army in Balochistan and was carried out in Afghanistan's Kandahar.
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India Today Fact Check
This video shows a rescue effort in Afghanistan's Kandahar province. Not Pakistan.
Amidst turbulent brown flood waters, lay a vehicle toppled. A survivor desperately climbed to the top with his head fixed to the sky, as a military helicopter arrived. Wasting no time, those inside the bird dropped a rope for the survivor to snatch.
This breathtaking scene is from a viral video that claims to show Jawans risking their lives to rescue flood victims in Balochistan.
AFWA Probe
Monsoon spells have claimed over 170 lives in Balochistan this year. Quoting Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Dawn reported that Balochistan has received 181.7mm of rain since June 14 — almost 300 per cent above what it normally receives each year.
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Having confirmed the province is battling rain’s fury, we turned our attention to the video next. When we reverse searched on Yandex, we found a tweet by Afghanistan-based journalist Mustafa Kazemi from January 4. He used a screenshot from the now-viral video here. "Backstory on Kandahar helicopter flood rescue," the thread began.
Backstory on Kandahar helicopter flood rescue.
Pilots had gathered to leave to Kabul for holiday. They were in a bus in Kandahar airport when they got the call. Two pilots nakedly “Lt. Edris & Capt. Sami” got off the bus & went to their V-5 and flew the rescue mission. pic.twitter.com/BQZJvGxcl3 — Mustafa KAZEMI (@CombatJourno) January 4, 2022
Mustafa said it was the pilots from the 777 Special Mission Wing that carried out the rescue operation in the "v-5" (Mi-17V-5) helicopter. In the last tweet of the thread, Mustafa included a link and screenshot of a video story by Radio Liberty dated March 4, 2019. "Flash flooding in Afghanistan has left dozens dead," text on the screenshot read.
Subsequent refined searches led us to a similar photo on the Agence France-Presse website. "In this photo taken on March 2, 2019, an Afghan military helicopter rescues people from atop an overturned truck in flooded area of Arghandab district in Kandahar province," the caption read.
At least 20 people were killed by flash floods in Kandahar, AFP said, quoting the UN. Among the reverse search results of the video, there were a couple of tweets on January 3. They claimed it was an Afghan Defence Ministry helicopter engaged in a rescue operation in Kandahar.
MOD deployed helicopter rescue team to save people from flash floods in Kandahar province
pic.twitter.com/uRsAR2xN76 — The 220 Podcast (@The220Podcast) January 3, 2022
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AFWA reached out to Kazemi who confirmed the viral video was from the incident in Kandahar and not Balochistan as claimed. So, while the claim was not fully true, we can confirm that the video was in circulation long before the monsoon rains wreaked havoc in Balochistan.
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