A photo which shows a huge crowd gathering is being shared on social media with a claim that it was taken in Pakistan when people were trying to escape the country due to the ongoing economic crisis. Let’s fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: Pakistani men are waiting in lines to run away from the country due to the ongoing economic crisis.
Fact: This photo was captured in October 2020 when people in Afghanistan gathered near the Pakistan consulate in Jalalabad. They had gathered to collect tokens needed to apply for a visa. Hence the claim made in the post is False.
To learn more details about the viral photo, we performed a reverse image search using Yandex. This search led us to an image carousel published by Reuters on October 2021, which contains the same photo as the viral post. The cutline of this photo reads, ‘Afghan men wait to collect tokens needed to apply for the Pakistan visa, in Jalalabad, Afghanistan October 21, 2020. REUTERS/Parwiz‘
Further search on the internet led us a news report published by Reuters in which they described the event associated with the photo. ‘An estimated 3,000 Afghans had congregated on the open ground, usually used for sports or pubic gatherings, outside the consulate, waiting to collect tokens needed to apply for a visa, two provincial officials told Reuters a day after the tragedy,‘ Reuters wrote. Reportedly, at least 15 people died in a stampede that broke out during this gathering.
Video reports by Al Jazeera English and Voice of America on this incident can be seen here and here.
To sum up, an old photo of a huge crowd gathered in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, is falsely shared as people trying to escape Pakistan due to the economic crisis.
