Photo of Two and a Half Year Old Sister Protected by Four-Year-Old Brother in Nepal: Facts

Story:

Two & a Half Year Old Sister Protected by Four-Year-Old Brother in Nepal.

Other Versions

1. Two & a half year old sister being protected by her 4 year old brother in Nepal. Amazing photo.

2. Two-year-old sister protected by four-year-old brother in Nepal.

3. Two year old sister being protected by her four year old brother in Nepal.

Analysis:

These stories about a heavily shared photograph on social media claim to show a heart-wrenching image of a two and half year old sister being protected by her 4 year old brother in Nepal after the earthquake havoc that occurred in late April 2015. Shown in the photograph is a little girl clinging to her brother, as if to take shelter from the outside world, while the boy carries scared eyes. Described as “Two-year-old sister protected by four-year-old brother in Nepal,” the picture of the kids went viral on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter in less than a week. It became so popular that there came attempts to look for the brother and sister among the earthquake’s victims, and then came calls for donations as well.

The fact of the matter, however, is that the picture is simply a file photo of two kids in Vietnam, taken eight years ago in 2007. Na-Son Nguyen, the freelance photographer and writer tweeted about his picture being misused as a photograph depicting the earthquake crisis in Nepal.

This is my photo about two Vietnamese Hmong ethnic children taken in 2007 in Ha Giang province, it’s not about Nepal pic.twitter.com/yq04TsH6CF

— Na-Son Nguyen (@nasonnguyen) May 2, 2015

The Vietnamese photographer Na Son Nguyen told the BBC.com that the picture actually shows Vietnamese Hmong ethnic children in Ha Giang province, playing in front of their house while their parents were away working in the field. He explained that the little girl, probably 2 years old, cried in the presence of a stranger, so the boy, who was maybe 3 years old or so, hugged his sister to comfort her. Notably, the same touching photograph was earlier shared among Vietnamese Facebook users as a photo of “abandoned orphans”. There were also some other tales about the kids, like they were the “victims of the civil war in Syria” or “two Burmese orphans”. Another version said the kids’ mother had died and their father left them. So the picture is unfortunately shared in the wrong context, it has got nothing to do with the earthquake tragedy in Nepal.

In a somewhat related story in past, a photograph was wrongly shared as showing a Child in Syria, sleeping between his parents’ graves.