Claim: Viral video shows the killing of Turkish contractors for violating safety standards following massive earthquake
Source: WhatsApp Video
Verdict: FALSE
Researched by Gifty Tracy Aminu
A video footage showing a number of men in handcuffs being thrown into a pit by soldiers and shot to death is being widely shared on WhatsApp.
Labelled as “forwarded many times”, the viral video is being passed around with a text message that portrays the video as showing: “Turkish soldiers shooting contractors whose shoddy work killed thousands of innocent people, including our own Christian Atsu…”
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The accompanying text further suggests that the men who were executed were “paid for Seismic Dampers to absorb earthquakes, but they buried car tyres under the foundations of huge High-Rise buildings.”
This indicates the contractors were supposedly found culpable for building and safety standard violations following the massive earthquake that killed more than 40,000 people in the country.
Who is Christian Atsu?
Christian Atsu was a former Ghanaian football international who died in Turkey following the earthquake.
He was confirmed dead on February 18, 2023, after being trapped under rubble in the aftermath of the earthquake that occurred between the borders of Turkey and Syria on February 6, 2023.
Until his untimely demise, Christian Atsu played for Hatayspor Football Club in Turkey.
Fact-check
Using the InVID video verification tool, FactSpace WA has found that the viral video was not taken in Turkey.
The video is linked to the killing of 41 people in Tadamon, a battlefront at the time of the conflict between the Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad and insurrectionists.
In an investigative article published by The Guardian, the video is reported to have been captured on April 16, 2013.
“It is the story of a war crime, captured in real-time, by one of the Syrian regime’s most notorious enforcers, branch 227 of the country’s military intelligence service…,” the article described.
Verdict
The claim that the shooting incident happened in Turkey in the aftermath of the earthquake on February 6, 2023, is FALSE.
