An image of Muslims praying while standing in chest-high water in May 2020 has resurfaced in social media posts, falsely claiming the photo was taken after Bangladesh was hit by deadly floods in August 2024. The photographer who took the photo told AFP it actually shows people praying in a mosque after flooding caused by Cyclone Amphan, which killed more than 100 people and affected millions in Bangladesh and neighbouring India after the cyclone struck in May. 2020.
“Bangladesh is currently in a terrible state due to the terrible flooding,” reads part of the caption of an image posted on Facebook on August 26, 2024.
“Look at these mullahs. You get the result of your karma, but it happens so fast. The sinners who destroyed the temple must take refuge there today,” added the caption, which was written in Hindi, the most common language in India, where it is Hindu.
The photo, which shows Muslim men praying while standing in water reaching up to their chests, was shared after severe flooding in low-lying Bangladesh where at least 40 persons and forced nearly 300,000 people to seek refuge in emergency shelters (archived links) here And here).
The deadly floods in the Muslim-majority South Asian country followed weeks of political unrest that culminated in the toppling of autocratic leader Sheikh Hasina, who fled by helicopter to neighboring India on August 5.
The message appeared to refer to false claims that dozens of Hindu temples had been burned to the ground in the chaotic aftermath of Hasina’s ouster (archived link).
Religious groups say they have documented hundreds of attacks on minority groups, including Hindus, who make up about 8 percent of Bangladesh’s 170 million people. But false reports have spread online suggesting that violence against Hindus was far worse than it actually was.
The same image was shared with similar claims elsewhere on Facebook here And hereand on the social media platform X here.
However, the photo is old and has nothing to do with the floods in Bangladesh in August 2024.
Photo from 2020
A reverse image search on Google led to the the same photo on the International Photography Awards website (archived link).
The photo is titled “Pray for Mercy” and is credited to photographer Sharwar Hussain. A description beneath the photo says it was taken in Satkhira, Bangladesh.
Below is a screenshot comparing the image in the fake posts (left) with the same photo on the International Photography Awards website (right):
A keyword search returned the same image placed on Instagram by Hussain on March 29, 2022 (archived link).
The caption read: “Great to see my work on the winning list @wwdphc -2022. This is a single photo from my long-term documentary project titled ‘Tears of Global Warming’.”
The photo won second place in the 2022 edition of the World Water Day Photo Contest (WWDPHC) (archived link).
Hussain, a documentary photographer from Bangladesh, told AFP he was “very disappointed” that his photo was shared out of context.
“This photo was taken in Satkhira, Bangladesh, in 2020, during super cyclone Amphan,” he said on August 28, 2024.
“There was no dry land around this place where people could perform their daily prayers. Therefore, people performed only the Djummah prayer in this mosque, under knee and chest height of stagnant tidal water.”
Amphan ravaged southwestern Bangladesh and eastern India in May 2020in which more than 100 people died (archived link).
The storm leveled entire villages, uprooted trees and destroyed fishponds. Tens of thousands of hectares of farmland and fruit plantations were also destroyed by the salt water from the storm surge that Amphan brought.
AFP has debunked other false claims related to the unrest in Bangladesh here.
