Daily Inqilab uses Zimbabwe photo in Nigeria boat disaster report
Bangladeshi news outlet Daily Inqilab published a video report on its Facebook page about a recent boat-capsize in Nigeria. However, Dismislab’s fact-check found that one of the two photographs used in the report was not from Nigeria, but from a separate ferry-capsizing accident on Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe.
Daily Inqilab published the video report on its Facebook page on August 22. The post’s caption read, “50 killed as passenger boat sinks in Nigeria.” The report used two still photographs. The first shows multiple bodies wrapped in colorful cloth, laid out in rows on the ground. The second shows an overturned blue vessel in a body of water surrounded by hills, with people in orange life jackets swimming nearby as rescuers on a small boat attempt to pull them aboard.
A reverse image search of the first photograph led Dismislab to a Reuters report published on August 20, 2026. The caption, credited to Reuters photojournalist Abubakar Imam, stated that the bodies of those killed in a boat capsizing in the Gorau area of Nigeria’s northwestern Sokoto State had been laid out in rows in a mosque courtyard before burial. That first photograph did indeed depict the accident in Nigeria.
A reverse image search of the second photograph found an exact match with an image used in a report published by Zim Citizen News on August 15, 2026, headlined “ZRGT Calls for Safety Overhaul After Lake Kariba Ferry Disaster Kills 44.” That report said at least 44 deaths had been confirmed at the time following the sinking of a state-run ferry on Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe.
A Reuters report published on August 18 said the death toll had risen to 94 during the rescue operation. According to the Zimbabwean government, the ferry, which had a capacity of 90 passengers, was carrying approximately 180 at the time of the accident.
A report published by Zimbabwe’s Daily News on August 17 described the Lake Kariba sinking as the deadliest maritime accident in the country’s history.
In other words, the second photograph used in Daily Inqilab’s report was not from Nigeria but from a separate ferry-sinking accident in Zimbabwe that occurred nine days before the Nigeria disaster. A different outlet had previously used video footage of an accident in Congo in a report about the Zimbabwe disaster; Dismislab had published a separate fact-check report on that instance as well.
For context, an overcrowded passenger boat sank in Nigeria’s Sokoto State on August 20. According to Reuters, the boat was carrying rice harvesters and farmers going toward the Goronyo market and had more than 70 passengers aboard. Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) confirmed at least 52 deaths, most of them children and adolescents between the ages of 10 and 15.
