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  • 2023-01-18 (xsd:date)
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  • Old video shows flash mob at Sri Lankan airport in 2019, not IMF officials being welcomed to country (en)
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  • As Sri Lanka battles an unprecedented economic crisis, a video was shared thousands of times in social media posts that falsely claim it shows airport employees welcoming officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with a dance performance. The video in fact shows a flash mob organised by airport staff to mark the start of a low-cost airline's flights into Sri Lanka in 2019. Look at these airport employees dancing to welcome IMF officials to Sri Lanka. They look overjoyed, reads the Sinhala-language caption of a video posted on Facebook here on January 2, 2023. The one-minute three-second clip has since been shared more than 1,400 times. It appears to show a group of men and women performing a choreographed dance to music as people around them watch and film. Screenshot of the Facebook post, captured on January 13, 2022 The video circulated with bankrupt Sri Lanka still reeling from months of food and fuel shortages that made daily life a misery for its 22 million people in 2022. President Ranil Wickremesinghe ordered a sharp cut in government spending and his administration has warned it had barely enough revenue to pay public salaries and pensions despite huge tax hikes. The island nation has defaulted on its $46 billion public debt and is negotiating an IMF bailout -- achieving debt sustainability is a precondition to securing a $2.5 billion IMF loan. The claim that the video showed IMF officials being welcomed was also shared elsewhere on Facebook here and here ; and on Instagram here . Comments on the posts suggest some users believed the claim. I am embarrassed! We fall into debt because of the weakness of our leaders and now we welcome foreigners with dances and arms wide open to beg for money, wrote one user. Another said: What kind of a dance is this? These are high-level visits, they should have had a traditional dance performance if they felt like this was a necessity. The video, however, actually shows a performance by airport staff in 2019, when they welcomed the first flights of low-cost carrier Thai Lion Air to the country. Airport 'flash mob' A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the video led to a longer video posted here on the Facebook page Aviation Flash on January 30, 2019. Its caption reads: Bandaranaike International Airport Welcome 'Flash Mob' for the Inaugural flight of Thai Lion Air, commencing from 30th January 2019. Performance by Staff of Airport & Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Limited. Bandaranaike International Airport is located about 32 kilometres (19 miles) north of Sri Lanka's capital Colombo. The video shared in a false context in social media posts corresponds to the portion beginning at the 11-second mark of the Facebook video from 2019. Below are screenshot comparisons of the video shared in false posts (left) and the Facebook video from 2019 (right): Screenshot comparisons of the video shared in false posts (left) and the Facebook video from 2019 (right) The head of marketing and corporate communications for Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Limited , Sumith de Silva, confirmed the performance is from 2019. It was a performance held to mark the inaugural Thai Lion Air flight to Sri Lanka in January 2019, he told AFP on January 17. A video of the performance was also posted on the Bandaranaike International Airport Facebook page here on January 30, 2019. The video was also shared on February 1, 2019 by the Facebook page of Times Online Sri Lanka , which is the website of Sri Lanka's Sunday Times newspaper. (en)
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