No, this photo was not taken in Malmö, Sweden

By: Christian Haag
March 19 2024

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Viral image falsely claiming to show Malmö in Sweden. (Source: X/Screenshot/Edited by Logically Facts)

Context

Social media users are sharing a photo of an unveiled woman in a red dress standing among veiled women on a metro train, falsely claiming it was taken in Malmö, Sweden.

The claims are accompanied by Islamophobic and xenophobic comments and have been viewed over a million times on X (formerly Twitter).

However, the claim is false. Malmö does not have a metro system, and the picture was most likely taken in Egypt.

In fact

Comparison between viral image and video by Africanews. (Source: X/YouTube/Screenshots/Annotated by Logically Facts)

Using a reverse image search, we found images on the stock photo site Alamy showing the interior of the Light Rail Transit in Cairo, which matches the train seen in the viral image. We compared these images with footage from an Africanews report on the new Metro system in Cairo, which matches the viral photo. 

We found an earlier version of the image on Facebook, posted on November 20, 2023, by an account called “All That History,” an Egyptian Facebook page claiming property rights to the image. The copyright notice in the bottom left-hand corner of the image reads "Copyright 2021," further indicating that this is an old image.

The verdict

The photo was taken in Cairo, Egypt. It could not have been taken in Malmö, because the city does not have a metro system. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.