Kevin Carter

South African photojournalist

 Joao Silva, who accompanied Carter to Sudan, g

ave a different version of events in an interview wit

h Japanese journalist and writer Akio Fujiwara th

at was published in Fujiwara's book The Boy w

ho Became a

 Postcard (Ehagakini Sareta Shōnen).

According to Silva, they (Carter and Silva) went to Sudan with the United Nations aboard Operation Lifeline Sudan and landed in Southern Sudan on March 11, 1993. The UN told them that they would take off again in 30 minutes (the time necessary to distribute food), so they ran around looking to take shots. The UN started to distribute corn and the women of the village came out of their wooden huts to meet the plane. Silva went looking for guerrilla fighters, while Carter strayed no more than a few dozen feet from the plane.

Again according to Silva, Carter was quite shocked as it was the first time that he had seen a famine situation and so he took many shots of the children suffering from famine. Silva also started to take photos of children on the ground as if crying, which were not published. The parents of the children were busy taking food from the plane so they had left their children only briefly while they collected the food. This was the situation for the girl in the photo taken by Carter. "God was smiling on Kevin." A vulture landed behind the girl. To get the two in focus, Carter approached the scene very slowly so as not to scare the vulture away and took a photo from approximately 10 metres. He took a few more photos and then the vulture flew off.

Silva stated that he also took similar photos, but didn't win the Pulitzer Prize. "That's just the way things go."