Digital Millennium and EFE
Mexico City / 05/14/2022 22:54:04
Almost 50 years ago, on June 8, 1972, the Vietnamese-Canadian photographer appeared Nick Ut made history by capturing the horror: a girl who died after being attacked by napalm during the Vietnam War.
Kim Phuc Phan Thi, The little one on this postcard went around the world drawing much criticism against this military confrontation and also awarded the Pulitzer Prize to the journalist, who has just resigned from the Associated Press news agency.
“The moment I took the picture, I knew I was going to change the history of photography.but it wasn’t until I saw it published in the newspapers that I realized how much it can help people confronted with the war,” Ut recently told local Italian media.
The story of The Napalm Girl
On June 8, 1972, during the Vietnam War, the United States launched the napalm attack Trang Bang city where Kim Phuc lived with his family. The nine-year-old girl’s response was to run away, removing the remains of her burning clothing.
“I started seeing columns of smoke and a lot of people running away. I saw an old lady running with a baby in her arms. The baby had died in her arms, she ran and said please help me, please help me!” the photographer said in a 2006 BBC interview.
“Through the black smoke, I saw Kim Phuc running and yelled, “Too hot! Too hot!” and took lots of photos. In my car to the hospital to try to save her life. I knew if I left her there, she would die.”he added.
Kim’s foundation page, which focuses on helping infants in warfare, notes that she spent 14 months convalescing in an American hospital in Saigonwhere a private foundation paid for his care.
The photographer during the war. (AP)
Also because of the photo Nick named the horror of war, In 1973 he won the Pulitzer Prize. “The image was unprecedented at the time due to the full frontal nudity of the bomb victims.. Although somewhat controversial, Ut’s Associated Press colleagues Hal Buell and Horst Faas believed the photo was newsworthy and its value exceeded the image’s nudity and it was widely disseminated. The photo is considered one of the most memorable photographs of the century.
Kim Phuc recovered, established himself as an anti-war icon, studied in Cuba for some time and later moved to Canada where he started a family.
“I don’t really know how I survived and how I am here. My story began with a bomb attack and a photograph. I’m one of those kids who suffered and is suffering in wars,” the survivor said in an interview, explaining that when she saw the photo, which she hated “for years,” she felt “embarrassed and vulnerable” and then had to live with trauma and nightmares.
TO SEE THE PHOTO OF THE NAPALM GIRL CLICK HERE
“It was only later, when I went to Canada and pursued my dream of becoming a wife and mother, that I realized what a great gift this photo was to me. Holding my daughter in my arms and looking at her, I understood that I had to fight and devote my life to one mission: to prevent my daughter and all the children of the world from suffering like the girl in the photo. That’s why I started a foundation to help and support children around the world.”
HC