Recently, a photo has been posted on social media with the claim: An orphaned girl in Iraq missed her mother so much that she found her own way to feel close to her. All she had was a piece of chalk—with it, she drew a picture of her mother on the ground. Then she gently lay down inside the picture, as if in her mother’s lap, and fell asleep.
See Facebook posts with this claim here, here, here.
See the Instagram post with the same claim here.
Fact-Check
An investigation by the Rumor Scanner team found that the photo in question is not real; rather, a fictional story has been attached to a 2012 artwork photo and circulated with a false claim.
An investigation into this matter found the photo on the Instagram account of an Iranian artist named Bahareh Bisheh. The photo is used as the account’s profile picture. She also posted the same photo on her Flickr account on July 15, 2012.
In the comment section of the Flickr post, she stated that the girl is her cousin and that there is no tragic story behind it.
Bahareh Bisheh said, “This little girl is my cousin and she was actually sleeping on the asphalt right outside my house. She must have been playing for a while and just laid down to rest and fell asleep. I stood on a chair to take this photo. No orphanage is involved, and there is no tragic story behind this. I took this opportunity to be creative. It is a type of photography.”
In other words, the popular narrative has no connection to the photo.
Therefore, an artwork photo is being circulated with the false claim that it is an orphaned Iraqi girl drawing her mother’s picture; which is false.
Sources
- bahareh.bisheh.official: Instagram Account
- Flicker: Post
