A photograph taken on the island of Lesvos of three elderly Greek women, one of whom is holding a refugee baby, has gone viral.
The image, entitled ‘Three grannies & a baby’, was taken last week by photographer Lefteris Partsalis, and uploaded on news website Rizopoulos Post.
Taken in the village of Skala Sykamias, the three women are pictured sitting on a bench, as one of them holds a baby in her arms feeding it with a bottle, while its mother stands to the right.
Newspaper Ethnos reported the story behind the picture, claiming the women would often sit on the bench watching coast guards and volunteers helping refugee arrivals from neighbouring Turkey.
According to the publication, the women, Militsa Kamvisi, 83, Eustratia Mavrapidi, 89, and her cousin Maritsa Mavrapidi, 85, heard the baby’s cry.
When they saw its mother’s failed attempts at feeding the baby, Militsa reached out to the woman.
“Hey, girl, bring the baby over, I’ll feed it,” Militsa told the mother in Greek.
Though she could not understand what the women was saying, the old woman’s facial expression and body language communicated her kind intentions.
When Militsa took the baby in her arms, she gave it the bottle and started singing the one-month-old a lullaby, accompanied by her friends.
“A mother is always a mother. I don’t see very well anymore, I don’t hear well, but still I can feed and calm down a baby,” Militsa told Ethnos.
“The baby wanted security. The mother’s clothes were wet, the father was in a panic because the baby was crying. We were just sitting there and there was something we could do. My daughter told me that the picture was all over the internet; I didn’t do something extraordinary. I just wanted to help a girl in trouble.”
Source: Keep Talking Greece
