China students walk 2km to gravely ill classmate for graduation photo, boy dies next day
More than 50 classmates of cancer-stricken15-year-old help him put on school uniform, take him in his bed to hospital garden for photo
Millions of people in China have been moved by a special graduation photo a group of teenagers took alongside their classmate in hospital on the last day of his life.
On May 17, more than 50 students from a junior secondary school graduating class in the Yilong Middle School, in Sichuan province, southwestern China, walked more than two kilometres from the school to the Yilong People’s Hospital with their teachers.
They were there to take a special graduation photo with their bedridden classmate, Ren Junjie.
Ren, 15, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer that develops in the lymphatic system, last year and quit school so he could be treated.
He went to another city for better treatment, and was recently transferred back to the hospital at home.
Despite it being just a month before the senior secondary school entrance examinations, which many consider to be a life-defining test, Ren’s father said all his son’s classmates came when the teacher suggested the group photo idea.