‘Syrian Hero Boy’ Video Was Fake

A video went viral this week purporting to show a small boy getting up after being hit by gunfire and saving a little girl—but on Friday, a group of Norwegian filmmakers admitted the video was a fake. The video’s director, Lars Klevberg, told BuzzFeed News that the video was shot in Malta with a cast and crew for the sake of becoming “a voice for every child caught in war, not just in Syria.” “So many children are getting killed or hurt there and nobody did anything in the media, trying to help them or write their stories,” he said. The video shows a boy being shot then getting up as a man shouts in Arabic, “Guys, guys, he’s moving. He’s alive. He’s not dead.” The boy then is shot again (and gets up again) as the man shouts “God is great!” The boy is then shown running toward a young girl, holding her hand, and running with her away from a burned-out car. Addressing the issue of its authenticity, the filmmaker said, “The film aimed to appear authentic, but the children surviving gunshots was supposed to send small clues that it was not real.”