The Vulture and the Little Girl

It is a photograph of a frail famine-stricken boy, initially believed to be a girl,[1] who had collapsed in the foreground with a hooded vulture eyeing him from nearby.

Forty percent of the area's children under five years old were malnourished as of January 1993, and an estimated 10 to 13 adults died of starvation daily in Ayod alone.

[2] To raise awareness of the situation, Operation Lifeline Sudan invited photojournalists and others, previously excluded from entering the country, to report on conditions.

According to fellow war photographer Greg Marinovich, Carter saw the trip as an opportunity to fix some problems "he felt trapped in".

To take photos in Sudan was an opportunity for a better career as freelancer, and Carter was apparently "on a high, motivated and enthusiastic about the trip".

[clarification needed] Carter flew with the UN for one day to Juba in south Sudan to take photos of a barge, with food aid for the region, but soon the situation changed again.

Greg Marinovich and João Silva described that in the book The Bang-Bang Club, Chapter 10 "Flies and Hungry People".

"[8] Silva and Carter separated to take pictures of both children and adults, both the living and dead, all victims of the catastrophic famine that had arisen through the war.

Nancy Buirski, the newspaper's picture editor on the foreign desk, called Marinovich, who told her about "an image of a vulture stalking a starving child who had collapsed in the sand."

"[3] This first publication in The New York Times "caused a sensation", Marinovich wrote, adding, "It was being used in posters for raising funds for aid organisations.

Papers and magazines around the world had published it, and the immediate public reaction was to send money to any humanitarian organisation that had an operation in Sudan.

"[17] Due to the public reaction and questions about the child's condition, The New York Times published a special editorial in its 30 March 1993 edition, which said in part, "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.

"[18] Four months after being awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography, Carter died by suicide via carbon monoxide poisoning on 27 July 1994 at age 33.