Heartbreaking moment a four-year-old Syrian girl 'surrendered' when a photographer pointed his camera at her... and she assumed it was a gun

• Young refugee girl mistook Osman Sagirli's camera for a deadly weapon
• Four-year-old froze in obvious terror and then raised her hands in the air 
• Child has been identified as Adi Hudea, whose father was killed in 2012
• Image has since gone viral, being shared on Twitter thousands of times 

This is the heartbreaking moment a four-year-old Syrian girl 'surrendered' to a photographer when she mistook the man's camera for a gun.

Taken at the Atmen refugee camp on Syria's border with Turkey last December, the image shows the young girl frozen in fear with her arms raised and her lips tightly pursed.

The child has been identified as Adi Hudea, whose father died in the 2012 Hama massacre and who has been living with her traumatised mother and three siblings at Camp Atmen ever since.

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Harrowing: Taken at the Atmen refugee camp on Syria's border with Turkey, the image shows four-year-old Adi Hudea frozen in fear with her arms raised and her lips tightly pursed

Shocking: Palestine-based photojournalist Nadia Abu Shaban tweeted the image along with the caption: 'Thought he has a weapon not a camera so she gave up'

The image was taken by Turkish photojournalist Osman Sagirli but went viral earlier this week when it was shared on social media.

Palestine-based photojournalist Nadia Abu Shaban tweeted the image along with the caption: 'Thought he has a weapon not a camera so she gave up'.

Turkish media researching the origins of the photograph later suggested Adi Hudea was a four-year-old boy, not a girl, and revealed he was a resident of the Atmen refugee in Syria.

But BBC Trending have subsequently spoken to Sagirli himself who confirmed the image shows a little girl.  

Ms Shaban's tweet has since been reposted more than 14,000 times and prompted emotional responses from social media users.

One wrote: 'I'm actually weeping seeing this. We've made this planet a horrible place, haven't we?', as another said: 'We are failing the younger generations and those still to come. SHAME ON US.'