A video showing a young boy carrying a crying child on his back is being widely shared on social media with the claim that it shows a boy caring for his sister while searching for his parents in the aftermath of the Nepal floods.
A Facebook user posted the viral post with the following caption:
Heartbreaking Visual from Nepal 💔
Little boy caring his younger sister 🥹 and finding their parents 😭.
Look at the pain and scratches on their faces. 💔💔💔
You can check the post here.
NM VERIFIED
NewsMobile investigated the viral post and found the claims to be false.
To verify the viral claim, we divided the video into multiple keyframes using InVID, a video verification tool, and conducted reverse image searches on them.
One of the searches led us to an Instagram post by an account named “thienduyennet”, which had shared a longer version of the viral video. The post was captioned, “The little boy carries his younger sibling under the scorching midday sun.” Neither the post nor the account made any reference to Nepal.
Further examination of the account revealed another relevant video shared on September 2, featuring the same children. In this video, a man can be seen speaking Vietnamese and offering the children beverages, clothes and snacks.
The account’s “About this account” section also indicated that it was based in Vietnam.
A keyword search for the account’s username led us to a report published by The Statesman, which had spoken to the person behind the account. The content creator was identified as Thien Duyen.
Duyen confirmed to The Statesman that he had filmed the video in Ha Giang, a rural and mountainous region in Vietnam.
Therefore, we can conclusively say that the viral post, claiming to show a boy caring for his sister while searching for his parents in the aftermath of the Nepal floods, is false.
