Video From Myanmar Falsely Peddled As Hindus Killed In Bangladesh

This claim is false. BOOM found that the viral video was originally taken in the Rakhine State of Myanmar in June 2024 and is not from Bangladesh.

The video is being widely circulated by users on social media, especially on X, using the hashtag "#SaveBangladeshiHindus."

(Links to the original video are not added due to its disturbing content.)

Amidst the violence and targeted attacks against religious minorities and members of the former ruling party, the Awami League, in Bangladesh following the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, old and unrelated videos of violence from Myanmar and other places have been circulating on social media. These videos are falsely being portrayed as “violence against Hindus” in Bangladesh.

Fact-check

BOOM conducted a reverse image search on Google Lens using keyframes from the video, which led to a LinkedIn post from June 2024 by Maung Hla Myint, a Rohingya human rights activist and founder of the Rohingya Aid & Empowerment Network (RAEN). The post confirmed that the video depicted a large-scale explosion in Myanmar’s Maungdaw Habi village, not Bangladesh.

According to Myint's LinkedIn post, "On June 9th in Rakhine State, a house was attacked in Habi West Village, Bakar Gongna Village, Maungdaw Township. The explosion of a large weapon just before 11:00 AM killed three members of a family on the spot and seriously injured six others."

"Amid fighting between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army (AA) in Rakhine State's Maungdaw Township, artillery shells hit the Habi West Rohingya hamlet of Thi Ho Kyun village tract today, resulting in 6 deaths, including two children, and 7 injuries, including four children," Lwin wrote.

In June, this year, Myanmar’s Rakhine State experienced a surge in violence between the Myanmar military and the Arakan army. The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the violence on the Rohingya community in Myanmar.

Reportedly, many of the attacks targeted the minority Muslim Rohingya community, who have been based in Rakhine for generations but denied full citizenship. Many were forced to flee into Bangladesh from there in 2017 following persecution by government forces.

According to the UN report, some members of the community experienced beheadings and burning of their homes. Data from the UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency) revealed that about 2,26,000 people from the community have been uprooted due to the violence.