The family of Marianna Mazeh, a south Lebanon girl, have expressed anger that her photo was circulated on sites claiming she was a starving child from Madaya in Syria.
A widely disseminated by Western media photo depicting a “Syrian child” being “starved” by the “evil Assad forces” is a fake. This girl is Marianna Mazeh and she lives in Lebanon.
Lebanon’s Daily Star writes in an article, ‘Starving Syria child’ revealed as south Lebanon girl:
The family of a south Lebanon girl depicted in a photo that went viral alleging to show a starving child from a besieged Syrian border town has expressed anger over the incident.
“They took it too far this time,” Rosine Mazeh, the grandmother of 7-year-old Marianna Mazeh, told Al-Jadeed from their village of Tay Filsey in a report broadcast Saturday.
She said the photo of her smiling brown-haired, blue-eyed granddaughter was originally posted to Facebook three years ago and had been doctored several times in the past by individuals promoting different causes.
Most recently, the photo was circulated in a side-by-side with images depicting a skeletal figure said to be suffering from malnutrition as a result of a Syrian army siege in the town of Madaya, located several kilometers east of Lebanon’s border.
Several other photos circulating on social media and picked up by some international news agencies that alleged to show starvation from the town have also been revealed as fakes.
An image grab from an Al-Jadeed report shows Marianna Mazeh playing on a phone next to her uncle in their south Lebanon village of Tayr Filsey. (The Daily Star/Al-Jadeed, image grab)