20,500 People Retweeted Photo Of Scared Child

Faces April, 3 2015 Olga Denyshchyk

Syrian girl thought that camera with telephoto lens is weapon.

More than twenty thousand people retweeted an image of a Syrian girl with raised hands. The photo was posted last week by Gaza based journalist Nadia Abu Shaban. In the caption she wrote that the girl thought that the photographer pointed a weapon – not a camera – on her.

This photos was taken by Turkish photographer Osman Sağırlı in 2014. The image was originally published in a Turkish newsletter. Before Abu Shaban tweeted the photo it was barely known.

photojournalist took this photo 4 Syrian child, thought he has a weapon not a camera so she Gave up ! #Surrended pic.twitter.com/bm1hOWQWJY

— Nadia AbuShaban (@NadiaAbuShaban) March 24, 2015

“I was using a telephoto lens, and she thought it was a weapon,” says Sağırlı. “İ realized 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,” said Sağırlı in his interview with the BBC.