A heartbreaking photo of a 4-year-old Syrian refugee traveling alone through the desert made a stir online Monday.
First tweeted by Andrew Harper, the United Nations' refugee agency (UNHCR) representative in Jordan, surfaced on Sunday, the image shows a small boy carrying a plastic bag full of belongings. The tweet said the little boy, whom Harper identifies as Marwan, was alone "temporarily" while traveling with family to the Jordanian border.
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Here 4 year old Marwan, who was temporarily separated from his family, is assisted by UNHCR staff to cross #Jordan pic.twitter.com/w4s2mrNnMY— Andrew Harper (@And_Harper) February 16, 2014
A second tweet on Monday confirmed that Marwan was returned to his mother "soon after" he was carried across the border by UN helpers.
Just to let you know that Marwan was safely reunited w his mother soon after being carried across the #Jordan border pic.twitter.com/h1XskyhWgz— Andrew Harper (@And_Harper) February 17, 2014
The photo took off once CNN news anchor Hala Gorani tweeted it out early Monday, attracting thousands of retweets. Gorani's tweet did not mention that Marwan's separation from his family was temporary, and the image makes it difficult to determine how far the boy had wandered.
A few hours after Marwan's tweet, Guardian journalist Shiv Malik tweeted that a UNHCR spokesperson told him the child's family was only "20 steps away."
@HalaGorani She said family was "20 steps ahead". Clearly distressing but Kid didn't arrive alone as such. (Not unaccompanied minor)— Shiv Malik (@shivmalik1) February 17, 2014
Harper's Twitter timeline is full of photos of Syrian refugees. The UNHCR estimates that more than 2.4 million Syrians have fled the country since the beginning of 2012, and close to 50,000 remain unregistered. As of last week, more than half a million refugees had fled to neighboring Jordan.