The photo above is among the most shared ones or it would not be wrong to entitle it as a viral picture on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter for about a week regarding earthquake that proved to be disastrous for the whole of Nepal.
This touching and heartbreaking photo in which two little kids are shown hugging one another wherein the boy is clutched tightly by his young sister gives the impression of her being extremely frightened from the tragic happenings taking place around and seeking shelter from everyone nearby. What makes it more dramatic are the fearful eyes of the boy empowering the image look of a perfect emotion rich click.
It would not have been even one week and the so-called moving picture went viral over the Internet flooding a mass of clicks on social media with the title “Two-year-old sister protected by four-year-old brother in Nepal.”
Since there is no dearth of emotional fools as well as benevolent people in the world, searches were made for finding the two children among the victims of Nepal earthquake. Not only this, folks were desperate to give them donations too for bringing their life back to normal.
But you will be shocked to know that this picture has got nothing to do with Nepal tragedy but it actually was clicked in the northern part of Vietnam and that too, about 10 years ago.
Finally, Na Son Nguyen, a photographer from Vietnam who clicked this image in reality had a tryst with BBC where he cleared, “I took this picture in October 2007 in Can Ty, a remote village in Ha Giang province.”
“I was passing through the village but was stopped by the scene of two Hmong children playing in front of their house while their parents were away working in the field.”
He added, “The little girl, probably two years old, cried in the presence of a stranger so the boy, who was maybe three years old or so, hugged his sister to comfort her.”
“It was both moving and cute, so I quickly made a shot.”
The Vietnamese photographer posted this picture on his personal blog; however, he got very much shocked 3 years back on discovering that the so-called photo was shared among users of Facebook entitled as “abandoned orphans”.
In his words, “Some people even weaved intricate tales about the kids”. For instance, “like their mother had died and their father left them.”
What’s more shameful is this all was not the end of the picture. After some time, Na Son saw the same image with the titles of “victims of the civil war in Syria”, “two Burmese orphans”, etc.
According to the photographer, he tried his best for clarifying and claiming copyright; nevertheless, he got only little success.
His final remark about the picture is, “This is perhaps my most shared photo but unfortunately in the wrong context.”