Image showing news coverage of Mozambique ferry disaster is misleading
Video used for illustration is file footage
CLAIM
An image shared on Facebook on April 8 purported to show news coverage of a ferry sinking in Mozambique.
BACKGROUND
On April 8, an image emerged on Facebook purporting to show a screengrab from a news broadcast report on the sinking of a ferry in Mozambique a day earlier.
The image was shared by a Facebook page called The Swati Newsweek, an aggregator of content that claims to “reveal the darkest secrets in society.” At the time of writing, the page had 175,000 followers.
METHOD
A reverse image search of the screengrab brought us to an article published by africanews.com, published on April 8, reporting on the sinking of a ferry off Mozambique’s northern coast on April 7.
The article contains a video showing a boat sinking in deep water with an africanews.com lower third on the screen. The video matches the screengrab shared by The Swati Newsweek, indicating that the Facebook page uploaded a screengrab of the video from the africanews.com website.
The text in the article is also a match for that shared on the post on Facebook by The Swati Newsweek.
Missing context
However, at 00:06 seconds of the africanews.com video, we see the video is marked as “FILE FOOTAGE”, indicating the content is not related to the sinking of the ferry in Mozambique on April 7.
A Google Lens search of the screengrab brings us to a news report by the Associated Press after two boats collided on the Congo River in western Congo on February 12, 2024. The video is an exact match for that published on the africanews.com site on April 7. “Footage captured from the bank shows people in the water while small boats move towards them,” the AP reported at the time.
From this analysis, we can conclude that the video dates back to February 12, 2024, in western Congo and is not connected to the Mozambique ferry disaster on April 7. Africanews.com clearly labelled the content as file footage. The screengrab taken by The Swati Newsweek is misleading and missing context.
RATING
The screengrab of the video posted on Facebook is not connected to the Mozambique ferry disaster, is misleading, and is missing context.
SOURCES
Facebook.com. (2023). Facebook. [online] Available at: Boat sinks in Mozambique 90 people killed [Accessed April 8 2024].
AfricaNews (2024). Available at: Mozambique: over 90 people killed after boat sinks. [online] Africanews. [Accessed April 8 2024].
AP Archive (2024). Available at: Dozens dead after boats collide and capsize on Congo River, local official says. YouTube. [Accessed April 8 2024].