No, these photos don’t show a young girl allegedly 'assaulted and raped' by Barack Obama

(Trigger warning: This story contains descriptions of distressing visuals and mentions of assault and sexual violence. Reader discretion is advised.)

What is the claim?

Several social media users have shared a set of two pictures to claim that they show “leaked” images of a girl allegedly assaulted and raped by former U.S. President Barack Obama. The two photos—one shows a child stuffed in a cardboard box with her limbs tied with brown tape, and the other shows Obama sitting with a girl on his lap—are being shared to link Obama with Jeffrey Epstein—the American financier who killed himself in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking. 

Some X (formerly Twitter) users shared the images, and wrote (posts archived here and here): "Photos of former US President Obama, one of those named in Epstein's paedophilia and prostitution documents released the other day, raping a little girl have been leaked. The dossier also contains photographs of the same child being taken out of a cardboard box after she had been kidnapped and sold as a sex slave, and then, most likely, tortured and killed (sic)." An archived link to another post making similar claims can be viewed here. Some of these posts have been viewed thousands of times.

Screenshots of the viral posts on social media. (Source: Instagram/X/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, a photo of Obama’s niece and an image of a child murdered in Indonesia in 2015 is being shared to make baseless allegations against the former U.S. president.  

What are the facts?

The girl in the cardboard box

Through reverse image search, we found that the first image of the girl in the cardboard box is from Indonesia and dates back to 2015. YouTube user ‘Bellicose Leo’ had posted a video on October 5, 2015, with the caption "Princess Nur Fauziah was cruelly murdered." We could spot the viral image around the 1:05 mark in the video. The video description stated that the body of Fauziah, who had been missing, was found in a box in ​​the Jalan Sahabat Kampung Belakang area of West Jakarta, Indonesia.

Indonesian news outlet The Jakarta Observer had also published a report along with the viral image on October 10, 2015. The outlet reported that full force was deployed by the police to search for the murderer of Putri Nur Fauziah Fauziah, who was found dead in a cardboard box.

A report published by The Jakarta Post on October 11, 2015, said that the police investigation found that Agus Darmawan, also known as Agus Pea, was responsible for the rape and murder of 9-year-old Putri Nur Fauziah. Agus "threw Putri's body in a cardboard box and dumped her seven kilometers away in an illegal garbage site in Kamal subdistrict, Kalideres, West Jakarta," the outlet reported.

The girl with Obama

The second image of Obama with a girl on his lap also dates back to 2015. The 'Obama White House' Medium account—which according to its description, is maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and serves as an archive of Obama Administration content—had published the image on December 31, 2015. 

The entry authored by Pete Souza, the former chief official White House photographer, and titled ‘Behind the Lens: 2015 Year in Photographs’ captioned the photo "The President snuggles with his niece Savita Ng after his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, and her family dropped by the Oval Office.”

The same was also published by Alamy in December 2015 with the credit given as ‘White House Photo’. The caption here also identified the girl in question as Obama’s niece Savita Ng. 

The Epstein Documents

Social media has been flooded 'Epstein' posts after the sealed court papers from a lawsuit involving Jeffrey Epstein were released last week. The documents several famous personalities like Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, and Michael Jackson, to name a few. It should be noted that the names mentioned in the documents do not necessarily mean these names were a part of Epstein’s “client” list or were involved in any illegal activities.

Since the release of the papers, several false and misleading lists have been circulating on social media implicating various famous personalities. Logically Facts has published a detailed article on Epstein's court documents and the misinformation being circulated around them.

So far, no evidence has emerged to establish a link between Epstein and Obama. Additionally, there are no news reports from any credible media outlet that make any mention of allegations of assault or sexual violence leveled against Obama.

The verdict

An image of a girl killed in Indonesia in 2015 is being shared to falsely claim that it shows a girl “assaulted and raped” by Obama. The second image doesn't show the same person and is of Obama’s niece. Therefore, we mark the claim false.