Mourners of Suicide Bomber are Darwin Award Candidates – Fiction!

Mourners of Suicide Bomber are Darwin Award Candidates – Fiction!

Summary of eRumor:  

A video shows people protesting the death of a suicide bomber at the hands of Israeli forces when the bomb strapped to the suicide bomber suddenly explodes, making the protestors candidates for the 2015 Darwin Awards.

The Truth:

 

This claim is false.

The video shows an attack on a funeral procession in Damascus, Syria, in July of 2012. The country began to slip into civil war in 2011 and the violence had escalated quickly by mid-2012. NBC News reports

“No one knows who did this. These Syrians want rid of their president, and someone wants rid of them. Carnage is appalling with scenes we cannot show. This is in the capitol, not even a funeral is safe here. Syria is slipping into an abyss.”

A Facebook user later posted the video with a caption that claimed the dozens of mourners who were killed were candidates for the 2015 Darwin Awards, which “commemorates those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it.” A caption posted with the video reads:

“A suicide bomber was shot dead by Israeli forces. Muslims took up his body and started protesting. These Darwin Award candidates did not know that the suicide belt was still tied to the bomber’s body which they were carrying. You will want to watch what happens next.”

The video itself proves that the claim is false. After the explosion, the video shows the body of the person who was being carried in the funeral procession lying in the street, fully intact. That means there is no way that the bomb was strapped to them.