The BBC published the above photo on its website on the date of May 27th, 2012. It cites an "activist" and "cannot be independently verified" but "is believed to show the bodies of children in Houla awaiting burial."
Houla is a city in Syria that is currently the site of anti-government protests and reports of widespread political violence. The reported "massacre" in Houla (the confirmed details of which are still vague in the Western media) is being used by the media to hype the possibility of a NATO-led military "intervention" in Syria, one very similar to 2011's "intervention"in Libya.
The photo was actually taken on March 27th, 2003 in Iraq by photographer Marco di Lauro. Di Lauro works for Getty Images and has been published by newspapers across Europe and the United States. The photo does not depict "bodies of children" but rather skeletons found in the desert.
This is either extraordinarily uncharacteristically negligent editing and fact-checking on the part of the BBC, or someone within the BBC purposefully used this photo with the intent of inflaming Western popular opinion against Syria in order to justify military action. Remember that the BBC is a publicly-funded semi-autonomous public service broadcaster that ultimately responds to the British government.
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