#NotaBugSplat: Artists Use Enormous Portrait to Humanize Victims of US Drones

In an attempt to humanize the many hundreds of innocent people killed by U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan, an artist collective has teamed up with human rights advocates and local villagers to turn the tables on the drone operatives themselves by “targeting” them with something they rarely see from their military control rooms half-way around the world: the face of one of their potentially innocent victims.

Tired of seeing the innocent men, women, and children of U.S. drone attacks termed “bug splats,” the French-based project is being done as a collaborative effort between artists and two human rights group, the UK-based Reprieve and the Foundation for Fundamental Rights in Pakistan, and was launched with the hashtag-friendly name, #NotaBugSplat.

According to the group’s website:

The child featured in the poster is nameless, but says the group, the young girl lost both her parents and two young siblings in a U.S. drone attack.

Sakib Afridi, a spokesperson for the group, explained to Channel 4 News: “We’ve been working on this for a few months. About a month ago we put it together and about two weeks ago we installed it in Pakistan.”

The girl, explained Afridi, is “an image of innocence like most children in that area.”

The project received little attention at first, but has now picked up momentum as various outlets have picked up the story.

From The Guardian‘s coverage:

Channel 4 adds:

And on Twitter:

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