|
Romanian parents carry a small casket and cross as they arrive at a Bucharest hospital to collect the body of their dead baby who died of AIDS in this February 6, 1990 file photo. Radu Sigheti: I found out that there is a ward at a hospital in Bucharest where children with HIV positive were hospitalised. I thought this is a story worth pursuing, at the time I had no idea what AIDS meant and I wanted to find out, thinking it would make a good story. I went there and took pictures of the children, aged between one to five years old but many looking like they were over 100; frail and helpless in their beds. One had died a day before. The smell of chloride was punching. At the time they used to spread it around that ward thinking it would keep it sterilised. That smell and the sight of those children, there were about 20-30 hospitalised, made me anxious and after a while I decided to leave as I could not stand it anymore. As I left with a friend we found his car, parked outside the hospital, with a flat tyre. He started working to replace it then at one moment I heard steps behind me. When I turned I saw this picture and I knew why they were there, for the child who died of AIDS a day before. I grabbed the camera and I took one shot. In the moment the couple heard my shooter noise they raised their eyes and looked straight at me. I took one more frame and I put the camera down. The look in their eyes said everything about their sorrow. I could not take any more pictures; I just followed them with my eyes as they slowly entered the hospital yard. (Photo by Radu Sigheti/Reuters)
|
