While discussing the Zimbabwe elections, and all the accompanying violence I mentioned a horrific photograph in the New York Times of an 11 month old child with her legs in a cast. Her legs had been apparently broken by government forces in order to force the mother to reveal the whereabouts of her husband who worked with the opposition.
Turns out the story was wrong.
A child with bandaged legs who appeared in a front-page New York Times photo and reportedly had them broken by violence in Zimbabwe was actually suffering from club feet, according to an editor's note published Wednesday that said his mother had lied to the paper.
The note also revealed that the Times discovered the child's true affliction when he was taken by the paper to a local medical center for help."
A front-page picture caption on June 26 describing an 11-month-old boy whose legs were in casts stated that his legs were broken and that his mother said the injuries were caused by an episode of state-sponsored violence in Zimbabwe," the note, on the correction's page, read in part. "
After the picture and an accompanying article that also described the injuries were published, The New York Times took the boy to a medical clinic in Harare for help. When the casts were removed, medical workers there discovered the boy had club feet. Doctors said on Monday that X-rays of the baby’s legs showed no evidence of bone fractures."
The note went on to explain that the child's mother eventually admitted her deception, stating "she had exaggerated injuries she said had been sustained by the boy during an attack by governing party militia.
In multiple interviews, she said that youths backing President Robert Mugabe had thrown her son to the concrete floor — and she still says that event did occur."The mother, however, later told The Times that the boy had been wearing casts even at the time of the attack, as part of a treatment he had received for his club feet at a different medical facility. She said she misrepresented the boy’s injuries to generate help because she could not afford corrective surgery for the boy."
Still a tragedy, just a different wrong kind.
