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The story behind the photo that broke hearts

Earlier in the week a heartbreaking picture of a young Syrian child holding her hands above her head in surrender went viral on the Internet.

It was tweeted by Gaza-based photojournalist Nadia Abu Shaban who explained that the four-year-old girl thought the camera was a weapon.

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While the Internet scrambled to find out more about the image that moved people to tears, the BBC managed to locate the photographer, Osman Sağırlı, and ask him more about the little child.

Imgur.

The original clipping of the photo. Photo: Imgur.

Originally thought to be a boy due to the gender neutral pronoun used in the Turkish caption on the photo, the photographer was able to confirm that the child is actually a young girl named Hudea from Hama.

Mr Sağırlı was amazed at the unnatural reaction this child had when a camera was pointed at her.

“I was using a telephoto lens, and she thought it was a weapon,” Mr Sağırlı told the BBC.

“I realised she was terrified after I took it, and looked at the picture, because she bit her lips and raised her hands. Normally kids run away, hide their faces or smile when they see a camera.”

Mr Sağırlı said he took the photo in December 2014 and it was published in the Türkiye newspaper in January, where he worked for 25 years.

The caption on the photo, which explains the four-year-old girl lost her father in a bombing before moving to the Atmeh refugee camp near the border of Syria and Turkey with her mother and siblings, is correct.

The photojournalist, who now works in Tanzania, said that the suffering of Syrian refugees is more evident in the children than the adults.

“You know there are displaced people in the camps. It makes more sense to see what they have suffered not through adults, but through children. It is the children who reflect the feelings with their innocence.”

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