Behind the photo: How a woman running from US bombs in Venezuela captured the night's fear and chaos

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CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — When explosions erupted by night in Venezuela’s balmy capital, 21-year-old Mariana Camargo dashed through the streets of eastern Caracas.

It was at 2:05 in the morning and, as explosions boomed in the background, Associated Press photographer Matías Delacroix was on the street snapping what would become one of the first images of the American military operation in Venezuela.

Days later — after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was replaced by his vice president following his capture by the Trump administration — Camargo and Delacroix found a moment of calm at the same place the emblematic photo was taken.

“A woman arrived in a big truck and she screeched to a stop and said ‘kids what are you doing here, go home they’re bombing!” Camargo remembered. “We were like nine people and we were like ‘Well, let’s run.’ We started to run and passed by here.”

The images show Camargo in a white shirt and jeans, sprinting through the street, with fear and urgency painted on her face, with a group of her friends running behind her. She said she clocked Delacroix standing to the side as he took the photo.

It was that emotion that caught the eye of Delacroix, who minutes earlier awoke to the rumbling sound of American strikes, grabbed his camera and ran onto the street toward the explosions. It was there, with the sound of military aircrafts overhead, that the two crossed paths: one person running away from the blasts and one running toward them.

“What caught my attention was how you were running, with your cellphone and clearly scared. I have photos of your friend that was behind you, but between the two photos, yours was the one that expressed the most what was happening,” said Delacroix to Camargo as they flipped through the photos.

As the photograph proceeded to paint the front pages and websites of the world’s biggest media, capturing a moment set to transform the hemisphere, Camargo’s friends began to see her and write her in their WhatsApp group message.

“Am I tripping or is that Nana Mariana???” asked one of her friends, posting a picture of the photo. (In Venezuela, Nana is a nickname for Mariana.)

“IT IS NANA!” another friend wrote shortly after.

The photo slowly became a joke in her friend group and even turned into a meme with the words “the gringos have arrived!” written over it. Camargo laughed as she scrolled through the messages.

“Now I laughed, and I laughed when I saw the photo. My mom laughed, my friends too. They made stickers and memes and all that," Camargo said. "But I still see the videos of what happened that day, of the explosions, I hear the sounds and I still feel this sense of panic."

On Sunday, a day after the strikes and as chaos, Camargo wrote to Delacroix over his Instagram account, asking if he had more photographs of the moment.

When they met up on Tuesday, chatting on the street, the two parted with a hug.

“Crazy things always happen to me,” she said with a laugh. “Of course I end up on the street during a bombing and I go viral. It’s nuts.”

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Associated Press reporter Megan Janetsky contributed to this report from Mexico City.