Claim: An image of a woman with facial scars is being shared on social media with captions that claim she survived a recent suicide attack at a tuition center in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Fact: The claim is false. The woman in these images was actually a victim of a suicide attack on TV workers in Kabul in 2016.
On 3 October 2022, a Facebook user posted an image of a girl with scars and wounds on her face with the caption; “WHERE ARE THE WOMEN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS ??? This is the face of Hazara Shia persecution. This young lady survived yesterday’s bombing of an educational center in Kabul, but lost most of her friends and classmates. Her face won’t make it to magazine covers in the West because she is not Malala.”
On 30 September, a suicide attack at a tuition center in Kabul’s Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood killed at least 35 people and wounded over 80. The area is home to many people from the minority Hazara Shia community, who are often the target of militant attacks.
Fact or Fiction?
The image was first posted by a verified account of Syed Zafar Mehdi on Twitter on 2 October 2022.
Soch Fact Check conducted a Tin Eye Image search and found that the photo was originally published by US media company Getty Images on 9 April 2016.
The image caption reads, “Razia Noorizada Didar, 30, was one of the seriously wounded victims that worked with Tolo for a decade. Razia has lost sight in her left eye, and has several fractured bones, her face is scarred from burns and shrapnel. She says her life is shattered and she wants to leave Afghanistan.”
A keyword search then led to reports published on 26 January 2016, according to which seven employees of Afghanistan’s 24/7 news channel Tolo were killed in a suicide bombing.
Virality
Soch Fact Check conducted an organic search on Facebook and found that the image of the woman with false claim has been shared here, here, here and here between 1 – 5 October 2022.
On Twitter, the false claim was posted by the verified account of Syed Zafar Mehdi which received 3,700 retweets, 7,297 likes, and 300 quote tweets.
Conclusion: The image of a woman with scars and wounds on her face is not from a recent attack on students in Kabul. The image is actually from 2016 and shows a survivor of a suicide attack on TV journalists.