Survivor of Vietnam attack says give peace a chance

The image of the naked nine-year-old screaming in terror and pain from her burns as she ran from a napalm attack helped to turn American public opinion against the Vietnam war.

Now, 30 years after Kim Phuc fled down that road towards the Associated Press photographer Nick Ut, she is in London to support a Christian forgiveness campaign and remind the world of the consequences of conflict.

"I am a victim of war, I came from war and I know the value of peace," she said yesterday. "My wish, my dream, is that I want everybody around the world to respect peace. We have to come together by negotiation. Let them know war just destroys, kills and causes loss. Nobody wins. From my point of view, from the point of view of that little girl, I cannot see another victim suffer like me. It is enough."

Mrs Kim admits she is no politician, but she just wants to give the view of a child who learnt more than most about war on 8 June 1972 when four napalm bombs were dropped on her village of Trang Bang, north of Saigon, in a botched "friendly fire" raid by US and South Vietnamese planes.

Two of her cousins who had been sheltering with her in a pagoda died, she suffered severe burns to more than half of her body and she was given little chance of survival. After 35 per cent skin grafts, 17 operations, and 14 months in hospital, she began studying medicine in Ho Chi Minh City.

But the picture had become so famous that the fate of the terrified girl remained a source of curiosity and on the 10th anniversary of the attack she was traced by a German journalist.

The Vietnamese government realised her propaganda potential, took her out of medical school sent her on tours of the country to educate people about the evils of capitalism and America, then sent her to Cuba.

"I was in first year of medical school, which was all my hopes and dreams, but I had to cut short my studies. Then I was not a free person at all," she said. She defected to Canada in 1992 and settled in Toronto, hoping to escape her past. But the picture came back to haunt her. In 1997 her husband, Bui Huy Toan, saw her in a local newspaper exposed as the "child of war", after a British journalist tracked her down.

She realised trying to escape the image was futile so she decided to use it to promote peace, and set up a charity, the Kim Foundation, to help children injured in war. She has forgiven the pilot who dropped the bombs and become a Unesco goodwill ambassador.

Mrs Kim added: "The picture is a really powerful gift for me to use to promote peace.''

She will speak on the theme of forgiveness tomorrow at Westminster Chapel as part of the FaceValues campaign run by the Evangelical Alliance.