Controversial British columnist Pauline Rogers, known for her confessional style of journalism, was the first to coin the term The Three to refer to the children who survived the crashes on Black Thursday.

This article was published in the Daily Mail on 15 January 2012.

It’s been three days since Black Thursday and I’m sitting in my newly constructed private office, staring at my computer screen in utter disbelief.

Not, as you may think, because I’m still stunned at the horrendous coincidence that resulted in four passenger planes crashing on the same day. Although I am. Who isn’t? No. I’m scrolling through the staggering list of conspiracy websites, all of which have a different–and more bizarre than the last–theory on what caused the tragedy. Just a five-minute Google session will reveal several sites dedicated to the belief that Toshinori Seto, the brave, selfless captain who chose to bring down Sun Air Flight 678 in an unpopulated area rather than cause more casualties, was possessed by suicidal spirits. Another insists that all four planes were targeted by malevolent ETs. Crash investigators have pointed out in no uncertain terms that terrorist activity can be ruled out–especially in the case of the Dalu Air crash in Africa where the traffic controllers’ reports confirm that this disaster was due to pilot error–but there are anti-Islamic websites being created by the minute. And the religious nuts–it’s a sign from God!–are fast catching up with them.

An event of this magnitude is bound to transfix the world’s attention, but why are people so fast to think the worst or waste their time believing in frankly bizarre and convoluted theories? Sure, the odds of this happening are infinitesimal, but come on! Are we that bored? Are we all, at heart, just Internet trolls?

By far the most poisonous are the rumours and theories being circulated about the three child survivors, Bobby Small, Hiro Yanagida and Jessica Craddock, who, for the sake of brevity, I’m going to call The Three. And I blame the media who are ensuring that the public’s greed for information about these poor mites is fed on the hour. In Japan, they’re climbing over walls for pictures of the poor boy who, let’s not forget, lost his mother in the accident. Others rushed to the crash site, hampering rescue operations. In the UK and the US, little Jessica Craddock and Bobby Small are taking up more front-page space than the Royal Family’s latest gaffe.

More than most, I know how stressful that relentless attention and speculation can be. When I split from my second husband and chose to write about the intimate details of our separation in this very column, I found myself in the centre of a media storm. For two weeks I could barely step outside my front door without a paparazzo popping up to try and snap me without my make-up on. I can empathise completely with what The Three are going through, and so can eighteen-year-old Zainab Farra, who, ten years ago, was the only survivor of another devastating air accident, when Royale Air 715 crashed on take-off at Addis Ababa airport. Like The Three, Zainab was the only child survivor. Like The Three, afterwards she found herself in the centre of a media circus. Zainab recently published her autobiography, Wind Beneath My Wings, and has publicly called for The Three to be left alone so that they can come to terms with their miraculous survival. ‘They are not freaks,’ she says. ‘They are children. Please, what they need now is space and time to heal and process what they have been through.’

Amen to that. We should be thanking our lucky stars that they were saved at all, not wasting our time building bizarre conspiracy theories around them or making them the subject of front-page gossip. The Three–I salute you, and I hope from the bottom of my heart that you all find peace while you deal with the terrible events that took your parents.