“Lesvos yiayia” Maritsa Mavrapidi, the Greek woman who back in October 2015, was captured by local photographer Lefteris Partsalis helping a young Syrian mother who had just landed on the shores of the eastern Aegean island after making the treacherous crossing from Turkey has died age 90.
“She was an honest woman who made us proud, and we will remember her always,” the community president of Mavrapidi’s village, Skala Skamnias, told the media on Wednesday.
The image of yiayia Maritsa attending to the infant together together with her two cousins became an international symbol of solidarity and the image of the three women was published around the world and prompted a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for Lesvos’s residents in 2016. The funeral of the elderly woman will be held in Lesvos today.