At his general audience in Saint Peter’s Square, Pope Francis received this Wednesday Kim Phuc and Nick Ut, the protagonist and the author of the iconic photograph of ‘The napalm girl‘, taken in Vietnam on June 8, 1972 in the midst of the war with the United States.
(Also read: This is ‘the napalm girl’, the protagonist of an iconic photo in Vietnam)
On that day, Phuc, who was nine years old, was fleeing Tran Bang village after it was bombed. At the time, Vietnamese-American photographer Nick Ut managed to capture the minor wrapped in napalm and running naked through the streets after her clothes evaporated from the phosphorus.
Photography became one of the most important of the 20th century and won the Pulitzer Prize and multiple awards.
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At their meeting, Phuc and Ut presented the Supreme Pontiff with a signed copy of the photograph. They also took advantage of their meeting with Francis to send a message rejecting the war that has been going on in Ukrainian territory since last February 24.
“Half a century later, as a survivor, I dare to say that we do not want war but peace because the world needs peace”, Phuc stated, as quoted by Vatican News.
At the end of the audience, the pope also met with a group of wives of soldiers from the Ukrainian Azov battalion, who asked him to intervene to “save the lives” of soldiers entrenched in the Mariupol steel mill.
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International Writing and AFP
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