The vulture and the little girl

The vulture and the little girl is a celebrated photograph by Kevin Carter which was sold to and appeared (for the first time) in The New York Times on 26 March 1993. It is a photograph of a frail famine-stricken girl collapsed in the foreground with a vulture eyeing her from nearby. She was reported to be attempting to reach a United Nations feeding center in Ayod, South Sudan sometime in March 1993. The picture won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography award in 1994 and The picture of the year award by The American Magazine.

Background and photography

In 1993, during the second Sudanese civil war, the country was hit by famine, forcing more than a million people into starvation in South Sudan. The United Nations and other relief agencies had set up camps for the refugees.^[1] In March 1993, Kevin Carter made a trip to South Sudan. During his trip, he found a weakened famine-stricken little girl, who was struggling to crawl to the feeding center set up by the United Nations but had to stop to rest. The parents of the girl were busy taking food from the same United Nations plane on which Carter had flown into Ayod. A vulture meanwhile landed behind the child. To get both into the focus and not to scare the vulture, Carter approached the scene very slowly and waited for 20 minutes hoping that the bird would spread its wings. The vulture did not spread its wings but Carter photographed the scene from 10 metres (33 ft) away. Carter then chased the bird away and left.^[2][3]

Carter did not touch the child since photojournalists were "told not to touch famine victims for fear of spreading disease". Carter had also estimated that people were dying at the rate of twenty per hour at the food center and regarded the girl and her condition as unexceptional.^[2]

Publication and public reaction

Carter sold the picture to The New York Times and it appeared for the first time on 26 March 1993 as a "metaphor for Africa's despair".^[1][2] The New York Times was contacted by several hundred people to ask if the child had survived. Carter was accused of inhumanity in not helping the child and leaving her vulnerable to attack. The criticism grew when Carter was awarded with the Pulitzer Prize for the photograph.^[4]

Special editorial

Due to the public reaction and questions about the girl's condition, The New York Times published a special editorial in its 30 March 1993 edition, in which the editor said, in part,^[2]

A picture last Friday with an article about the Sudan showed a little Sudanese girl who had collapsed from hunger on the trail to a feeding center in Ayod. A vulture lurked behind her.

Many readers have asked about the fate of the girl. The photographer reports that she recovered enough to resume her trek after the vulture was chased away. It is not known whether she reached the center.

— Editor of The New York Times, ^[5]

Awards

• Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography (1994)
• The picture of the year by The American Magazine^[6]

Kevin Carter's suicide

Four months after being awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography, on 27 July 1994, Carter committed suicide.^[3][7]

See also

• Bang-Bang Club
• Kevin Carter (song)

References