Photographer Nick Yut took a picture of the victim, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, who was a little girl in 1973, jogging naked after she was badly burned when a village near the capital, Saigon, was bombed with incendiary “napalm” bombs, an internationally banned weapon.
That is why the little girl, Kim Fook, was called “the napalm child.”
Despite the massive wounds inflicted on the child, which continue with the passing of her years, she does not want to spread messages of anger or revenge.
In an interview with the British “Sky News” network published on Monday, she says that she wants to spread messages of forgiveness and peace at a time when the world is preoccupied with the war raging in Ukraine, where human tragedies are repeated.
And “Sky News” stated that the image of the “Napalm Child” represents the horrors of the war in Vietnam, as it shows a naked child extending her arms and screaming in pain and running from invisible horrors towards the camera.
The girl was 9 years old when US forces bombed her village with incendiary napalm bombs.
The girl suffered third-degree burns that covered about half of her body, and was not expected to live beyond, and two of her cousins were killed by the bombing of American planes.
The child, who is now on the cusp of old age, says that she still bears the physical and psychological scars of that tragic incident.
She recounted those harsh moments: “I saw the plane. It was fast and it made a lot of noise, and I just stood there.”
And she added: “I saw four black packages falling from the plane, then I heard a very annoying noise, which has remained with me to this day.”
And she continued, “Suddenly everything around me turned into fire.”
After the tragic accident, the girl spent two years in hospitals and clinics, and her picture, taken by an Associated Press photographer, became iconic, summarizing the ugliness of the nearly two-decade Vietnam War.
The impact of the photo on the little girl was so great that she thought of committing suicide.
That girl left her country, Vietnam, for Cuba, where she studied, got married, and later immigrated to Canada.
Decades after that tragedy, the child, who became a woman, was able to meet the American pilot who coordinated the attack on her village.
She said he cried like a child and asked her for forgiveness, and she told him, “Yes.”
She stated that this meeting expresses a message of tolerance that she is now conveying to the world through the work of the Kim International Foundation, which provides funds to groups that provide free medical care for children victims of war and terrorism.
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