Sonny Bill Williams Causes Twitter Storm With Graphic Syrian Refugee Photos

Graphic photos of dead children posted online by Sonny Bill Williams would never have been published by the organisation he was acting as ambassador for, a Unicef spokeswoman has said.

Meanwhile, William has not taken down the controversial post from this Twitter account.

During his visit to the refugee camp Williams was pictured meeting Fatima, 12, who escaped to Lebanon from Syria with her parents and four brothers two years ago. “People can un-follow”.

But today, UNICEF says the photos aren’t in fact from his trip to Lebanon and that his tweet was not done on their behalf. No further details have been shared about the location of the photos or the identity of the children.

Moore has seen the same Syrian refugee camps and said although Williams’ photos were not appropriate for social media, she understood the anger the rugby union player must have felt to share the distressing images.

The tweet comes less than a month after Williams’ return from visiting a refugee camp in Lebanon as a Unicef ambassador.

Although many of us have been over indulging this Christmas, the conflict in Syria continues to be remorselessly waged by numerous factions, alliances and worldwide coalitions.

He accompanied the split image with: “What did these children do to deserve this?”

He said the organisation took children’s rights seriously both in life and death and publicising pictures of their deaths breached those.

‘This summer share a thought for the innocent lives lost everyday in war’.

Nonetheless, the actions of the World Cup winning centre have caused much debate, with some pointing out that Williams should refrain from posting such images without warning.

Some users criticised the confronting images and labelled the tweet “insensitive”.

Some have supported the World Cup winner’s decision to tweet the photo, while others have called for the image to be censored out of respect for the dead.