The Syrian girl was one of thousands of refugees waiting patiently at Preševo in Serbia near the Macedonian border. It was 7 October 2015 and she was holding firmly on to the cold security fence with her family standing behind her. She looked more eager than most to be on her journey to Europe, as a transparent raincoat fell over her face.
A photograph of the girl, one of the most striking to come out of the refugee crisis, won a World Press Photo award in the People category. However, its creator, Matic Zorman – a Slovenian photographer – didn’t make a note of her name. And now he wants to find her.
“I did not want to disrupt her so I did not talk to her,” he says. “[I didn’t notice] the raincoat which fell over and covered her face as I pressed the shutter, I just walked further to the entrance of the registration centre to get a wider image of the area.” It was only later that he noticed that she was “seemingly suffocating” and that the image symbolised the struggle endured by so many refugees.
Mr Zorman has covered the refugee crisis since 2014, spending months at a time on the road, but this image always haunts him. “I always return to the main question – what is her name and where is she?” he says.
Now, the 29 year old is appealing to the Serbian authorities and NGOs working on the border that day to come forward and help him in his search. He acknowledges that her family “might not be happy with the exposure”, but feels that it’s wrong to leave the image as a “passive document of the refugee crisis”.
“The World Press Photo award changed my life,” says Zorman, “but frankly, what about hers? Where is she now? I want to channel the attention the image received, into an opportunity to give her a voice of her own that could speak louder than the image.”
So far, his appeal has been fruitless. Zorman says he will keep looking. “The end of each story depends on where you stop it,” he says. “What I hope for is to do a positive story about her current situation. After all she has gone through, I think I owe here that.”
Can you help find the girl? Anyone with information can contact Matic Zorman via maticzorman.com
