How I photographed little Hudea: She thought it was a weapon and raised her hands in fear!

A photograph of a child from Syria, with clenched lips, holding her hands up, thinking the camera was a weapon, has gone around the world in recent days.

Turkish photographer Osman Sagirli described to the BBC how the photograph was taken, reports the Patria News Agency.

The photograph went viral last week when it appeared on the Twitter account of Gaza-based photojournalist Nadia Abu Shaban. It was followed by over 11,000 retweets, and then the image reached the Reddit website, where it caused an avalanche of comments.

World media soon began to carry it, and in tens of thousands of comments, people said the photograph made them cry or that "humanity is on the brink of collapse.".

Of course, there were also accusations that it was staged, but Sagirli denied this and explained that the photograph was taken in December 2014 in the Atmeh refugee camp in Syria.

Although many thought the photograph was of a Syrian boy, it is actually four-year-old girl Hudea. She arrived with her mother and siblings at a camp 150 kilometers from their home in Hama, and about ten kilometers from the Turkish border.

-I was using a telephoto lens, and she thought it was some kind of weapon. I realized she was scared only after I took the picture. I looked at the photograph and saw her biting her lip and holding her hands up. Usually, children run away, hide their faces, or smile when they see a camera, Sagirli told the BBC.

He said that photographs of children from refugee camps tell the true story of the horrors of war.

-There are many refugees. It makes more sense to describe the suffering they have gone through through children, not adults. Children are the ones who show their feelings with all their innocence, Sagirli said.

The photograph was published in January in Turkish newspapers for which Sagirli has worked for 25 years as a reporter from war zones and crisis areas abroad. Even then, Turkish social media users had focused on it, but it took several more months for it to reappear and reach the spotlight of the Western public.

Sagirli is currently working in Tanzania.