A video purports to show body bags for virus victims in Italy.
The one-minute 13-second clip shows rows of body bags lined on the floor of a building., Below is a screenshot of the misleading Facebook post:, The video’s simplified Chinese caption translates to English as: “Sick death increases everyday in Italy”., COVID-19 was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019 and has since spread worldwide. The World Health Organization has declared it a global pandemic.\xa0On March 16, official data showed the number of fatalities\xa0caused by the virus in Italy rose to\xa01,809 -- more than half of all the fatal cases recorded outside China, AFP reported here. The European Union, in a response, has since closed its borders to “all non-essential travel” in an effort to contain the ongoing spread., The same video was also shared here on Facebook;\xa0here on Twitter and here on YouTube\xa0alongside a similar claim., But the\xa0video has been shared in a misleading context., A man speaking in Persian-language throughout the video can be heard stating it\xa0was filmed\xa0inside a mortuary in Qom, a city in Iran., Part of his voiceover translates to English as: “In the name of God, here is Behesht-e Mausmeh mortuary of Qom, and today is Monday, 12th of Esfand (March 2). These are the dead, that as you can see have been handled since the morning. But unfortunately, there are too many bodies and it just does not finish. These are all coronavirus patients that must be washed . . . \xa0and this room . . . and in this room, some of the bodies have been here since five, six days ago.”, "A reverse image search using keyframes extracted from the video found this March 12 report by the French television network France 24, headlined: “Authorities in Iran hiding COVID-19 deaths by listing other causes on death reports”.", The report features a screenshot of the video in the misleading Facebook post at its 10-second mark. It is captioned: “The image on the left shows at least 56 body bags awaiting burial at a facility at the main cemetery in Qom.”, Below is a screenshot of the report:, The report includes a link to an identical video. It was\xa0published here on The France 24 Observers YouTube channel on the same day with the title: “Coronavirus in Iran: at least 56 body bags awaiting burial at a facility at the main cemetery in Qom”., , "The YouTube videos caption reads\xa0in part: “This video circulating on Twitter and Telegram shows at least 56 body bags awaiting burial at a facility at the main cemetery in Qom...The deputy prosecutor general of Qom said March 5 that the man who filmed the video was later arrested.”", AFP also found the video published here by BBC Persian on March 3, alongside a caption saying that the video was shot inside a mortuary in Qom., ادعای مقامات یا شواهد قبرستان؟\n\t\t⚠️تصاویر ناراحت\u200cکننده\n\t\tغسالخانه قبرستان قم، ۱۲ اسفند؛ بیش از ۴۰ جسد در این ویدیو دیده می\u200cشود. فردی که فیلم را گرفته مدعی است آنها از ابتلا به کرونا درگذشته\u200cاند.\n\t\tابتلا به کرونا با تست مشخص می\u200cشود که در ایران دسترسی به آن محدود به بیماران خاصی بوده است pic.twitter.com/vyYMvGcRIC, , "According to this March 4 report by Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA),\xa0Qom municipalitys morgue director,\xa0Ali Ramezani,\xa0said the video was filmed at a cemetary in his jurisdiction.", His comments translate to English as: "The bodies shown in the video were held at Behesht-e Masoumeh (mortuary) upon the request of the families so that their coronavirus tests would be finalised...they would be held for a couple of days since the burial of those whose test is negative would be done normally., “The person who shot the video was a volunteer who was helping at Behesht-e Masumeh.", The IRNA published this report on March 3 stating a person was arrested following the circulation of\xa0the video online., Quoting Hamzeh Zare, the deputy prosecutor of Qom, the report\xa0reads\xa0in part: “This individual who had filmed Behesht-e Masume mortuary without permission was arrested hours after the video was published.”, , Copyright © AFP 2017-2020.  All rights reserved.  Users can access and consult this website and use the share features available for personal, private, and non-commercial purposes.  Any other use, in particular any reproduction, communication to the public or distribution of the content of this website, in whole or in part, for any other purpose and/or by any other means, without a specific licence agreement signed with AFP, is strictly prohibited.  The subject matter depicted or included via links within the Fact Checking content is provided to the extent necessary for correct understanding of the verification of the information concerned.  AFP has not obtained any rights from the authors or copyright owners of this third party content and shall incur no liability in this regard.  AFP and its logo are registered trademarks.
The video has circulated in media reports about coronavirus deaths in Iran | AFP Fact Check