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Elderly Greek Woman Feeds Refugee Infant

lebos_paidaki_533_355The picture of three elderly ladies from Lesvos with one of them feeding a refugee infant has become viral and discussed on social networks as a depiction of compassion.
The woman who fed the baby told Ethnos newspaper the story behind the famous photograph, taken by Lefteris Partsalis.
It was Friday afternoon at Skala of Sykaminia on the island of Lesvos and the three women were sitting on a bench like they do every day for years now. Emilia (Militsa) Kamvisi (83), Eustratia Mavrapidi (89) and Maritsa Mavrapidi (85) were watching men of the coast guard and local volunteers help refugees coming out of boats that brought them from neighboring Turkey.
The three women heard the continuous cry of a baby. The one-month old infant was held by his mother, who was soaking wet, and was not drinking the milk from the bottle.
“Bring the baby here, my good girl,” said Militsa to the refugee mother. The woman did not understand Greek, but understood the elderly lady by her gestures. She handed the baby and the bottle to Militsa, who took the boy in her lap and started rocking the infant and singing to him. Her two friends joined in the singing. The boy relaxed, he stopped crying and started drinking hungrily from the bottle.
“A mother is a mother until she closes her eyes,” the elderly woman said, answering to the reporter who asked her how she knew the way to pacify the infant and feed him. “The baby needed security. The mother was wet and was looking for clothes to change, while the father had panicked listening to the baby cry. We were just sitting there and we could do something. I grabbed the child, took the bottle, and the baby felt a dry lap. Then we started singing and the baby drank all the milk at once.”

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