Is the post linking Obama to an Indonesian girl’s death real?
Is the post linking Obama to an Indonesian girl’s death real?
https://news.meaww.com/fact-check-is-the-post-linking-obama-to-an-indonesian-girls-death-real
Publish Date: 2026-02-23 21:49:00
Source Domain: news.meaww.com
The post shows a collage of a photos of Obama hugging a child alongside an image of a dead girl
WASHINGTON, DC: Amid the controversies and conspiracy theories surrounding the release of a massive tranche of files linked to the convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein, a photo has surfaced on social media platforms claiming that a girl photographed with former President Barack Obama was found dead. Let us analyse the photo and fact-check it.
Claim: Image links Barack Obama to a murdered girl
The photos shared on X on February 2 came with a simplified Chinese caption stating, “This image was not created by artificial intelligence. Obama, George Clooney, and a 9-year-old girl. The girl is dead!”
The first image shows Obama, actor George Clooney, and a child sitting in a boat. The other is a collage of photos of Obama hugging a child alongside an image of a dead girl who has had her limbs bound and her mouth taped shut.
The second image was shared in a different X post with a simplified Chinese caption that reads, “No one in the Epstein case has faced legal punishment!”
Fact Check: Images are misrepresented in the false posts
The photo of Barack Obama hugging a child was taken on December 4, 2015, by the White House’s official photographer, Pete Souza (medium.com)
However, the viral image is not linked to the Epstein files, and they have been misrepresented in the false posts, as it has been publicly available for years before the release of the files.
A reverse image search reveals that the image of Obama and Clooney on a boat was captured in June 2019, when the former US president and his family visited the actor’s mansion in northern Italy’s Lake Como region.
A keyword search on Google found that the photo of Obama hugging a child was taken on December 4, 2015, by the White House’s official photographer, Pete Souza, who posted it on his personal blog.
“The President snuggles with his niece Savita Ng after his sister, Maya…
