How CNN helped spread a hoax about Syrian babies dying in incubators

A disturbing story is circulating on social networks — especially in Arabic — and some news media that a number of premature babies died in their incubators when Syrian forces cut off electricity to hospitals during their assault on the city of Hama.

Evidence suggests it is a cruel hoax, and the pictures of the “dead babies” widely circulated online are false.

To me the story was immediately suspicious. First of all it sounded too much like the false reports of invading Iraqi troops throwing babies out of incubators in Kuwait in August 1990— reports that were used to build public support and urgency for the 1991 Gulf War. These claims were part of an elaborate propaganda effort by the Washington PR consultancy Hill & Knowlton hired by the Kuwaiti government.

Why this matters

As the Syrian government has escalated its brutal crackdown against the uprising, people outside the country, including major news media, have become reliant on YouTube videos and eyewitness accounts collected at a distance.

Many of the videos that have emerged from Syria depict horrifying violence even if it is not always possible for news media to verify specific details. What is not in doubt is that the Syrian government has sought to restore its grip on the country with extreme violence. Many innocent people have been victims — including children, such as 13-year old Hamza al-Khatib who was tortured and killed in horrifying circumstances.

In this hazy situation created by Syria’s exclusion of international media, different parties can try to seek advantage in the propaganda war. False reports and hoaxes make it much harder to get people to take real crimes seriously.

What has been claimed

Last night, I received this image by Twitter. It can also be found on numerous Arabic-language forums, particularly based in the Gulf. Here’s one example and here is another. The accompanying texts are similar — though with changing details — to the caption on the image I received which said (my translation):

URGENT

Syria | The electricity was cut today from the city of Hama, and the outage included the hospitals. Following this, the Shabiha [state militia] deliberately destroyed the electricity generators in the hospitals which led to the deaths of all the premature babies (more than 40 in a single hospital).

On its face, the report is hyperbolic and not very credible, though it appears to be believable enough that many people circulated it in good faith.

But even the most brutal regimes don’t tend to deliberately destroy generators at hospitals. Not even Saddam’s army really threw babies out of incubators. Which hospitals? If it was 40 babies in one hospital, how many in the others? Tens more? Hundreds more? And what about the picture? Are those babies dead or alive?

Moreover why haven’t any of the major human rights organizations monitoring events in Syria including Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International raised the alarm?

Claims of babies dying in incubators appear as early as 30 July

The photo and claims of the dead infants in Hama that I received began circulating on Twitter at least as early as August 4 or 5, but without any sourcing: