Multiple users on X, including PTI supporters, shared on Thursday a photo of children lying on top of wooden sticks surrounded by water, claiming that they were flood victims in Punjab. However, the image is at least five years old.

Pakistan was hit by massive floods in August this year, which have claimed over 842 lives, displaced 1.2 million people, affected more than 4m, mainly in Punjab, and threatened economic losses between $6–10 billion thus far.

Currently, South Punjab is in the throes of the devastating flood crisis, with districts such as Multan, Bahawalpur, and Dera Ghazi Khan inundated, leaving millions of residents affected and 1,400 villages submerged under 5–10 feet of water.

On Thursday, a photo showing two children lying on a pile of sticks and debris surrounded by what looked like floodwater was shared by a verified X account, which seemed to be of a PPP supporter from previous posts.

The caption of the post said: “You should have seen us during our prosperous times. We had our own homes and loved ones.” It was coupled with the hashtags ‘Saraiki Lives Matter’, ‘Saraiki Waseb Flood’ and ‘Save Saraiki Waseb’.

Saraiki is the language mainly spoken in South Punjab.

While the post gathered 1,313 views, the photo quickly began circulating on social media.

Youtuber and former anchorperson Imran Riaz Khan also shared it with a broken heart emoji. His post amassed about 66,000 views and was reshared over 2,000 times.

The photo was also shared by other social media users, as can be seen here, here, here, here, here, here and here, racking up more than 17,000 views.

A fact-check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim due to its virality and keen public interest in the floods and their damage.

A reverse image search yielded the image used in a Daily Jang report dated Sept 7, 2020, with the following headline: “Rain and flood disasters: 667,000 people homeless, 14 dead, 4,800 villages submerged in Umarkot”.

Umarkot is a city in Sindh, and the story detailed the destruction that was wrought there in the catastrophic floods of 2020.

The image was also found used in an August 26, 2022, news story by state broadcaster Radio Pakistan, titled: “Federal cabinet members, Pak Army Officers donate one month’s salary to flood relief fund”.

However, neither of the news reports shared a caption with the photo describing where it was from or provided any other detail, such as the source or the photographer who took it.

The image was also reshared on social media platforms X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook during the 2020 and 2022 floods, as can be seen here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

It was also shared last month, when floods wreaked havoc in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit Baltistan, with social media users claiming that the visuals showed scenes from the regions as can be seen here, here and here.

The actual location and occurrence of the image thus could not be conclusively determined, while users in the comments variably claimed it was from Sindh, Punjab and Afghanistan.

However, the fact that a media outlet shared the image in 2020 conclusively shows that it is not from the 2025 floods.

Therefore, the fact-check determined that the claim that a viral image shows victims in Punjab from the recent floods is false. The photo has been shared multiple times over the years pertaining to the various floods in Pakistan and is at least as old as 2020, when it was shared by a media outlet in relation to Sindh.

This fact check was originally published by iVerify Pakistan — a project of CEJ-IBA and UNDP.