One month in Somalia
By Feisal Omar
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
April 5 – I was in my car and was not far from the theater when I heard a big explosion. I stood up and immediately saw a local journalist covered with blood and running. I asked him about the explosion and he told me it was inside the theater. I went towards it but security was tightened after the blast as the government feared other blasts would follow. By then, government soldiers were firing on anyone rushing to the scene.
After some minutes I managed to enter the theater. I saw dead bodies including those of the two biggest sports officials. I was shocked. Rescue workers stood on scattered pieces of human flesh as they collected casualties. I had to take their photos as tears rolled down my cheeks.
I tried to take photos outside the theater but after taking several images soldiers fired on me and ordered me to leave the area. The commander of the theater guards ordered journalists and rescuers to be fired upon. We ran away at neck breaking speed and the soldiers kept on firing until we disappeared. That was a very shocking day that I will never forget.
The children of Dadaab: Life through the lens
Through my video “The children of Dadaab: Life through the Lens” I wanted to tell the story of the Somali children living in Kenya’s Dadaab. Living in the world’s largest refugee camp, they are the ones bearing the brunt of Africa’s worst famine in sixty years.
I wanted to see if I could tell their story through a different lens, showing their daily lives instead of just glaring down at their ribbed bodies and swollen eyes.
It was a challenging project. As one senior photographer asked, how else can we tell the story without showing images that clearly illustrate the plight of the starving millions? Few photographs cover all aspects of life in the camps.
Many of Dadaab’s children are dying. And then there are others who, despite living in the world’s oldest refugee camp, embrace their childhood; they play, go to school, care for their siblings and collect water for their families. I wanted to incorporate all of these aspects of life for Dadaab’s children into this project.
To tell the story, I combined Reuters photography captured during the height of the famine with footage I had collected when I was in Dadaab six months ago, before the severity of the crisis hit international headlines.
The point is, when news of the famine made it to the front pages, the children I had filmed in Dadaab were now only perceived as children on the frontline of famine. Not just as children who were excited with the furor we brought to the camp.
It is very hard with even the best efforts and intentions to overcome corruption: bribes and payoffs, extortion, protection rackets, insiders syphoning off the oil and mineral revenues, corporations pretty much doing whatever they want and enslaving entire populations, and commodities traders driving the price of grains and fuels up.
I know, Africa should lower the tax rates for the top 1% to 15% and they will create lots of jobs!
Too bad they don’t have Fox News in Africa.
Flashback to Baidoa, Somalia: 1992
By Yannis Behrakis
It was the beginning of December 1992 and the winter had settled into Athens – the big story was the civil war and the famine in Somalia.
I volunteered to cover the story, as I’m sure many others did, but I was one of the “lucky” ones selected to go. Tom’s distinctive voice on the phone sounded both reassuring and worried. It was my first trip to the region and I remember running frantically to get malaria pills and a Yellow fever vaccine. I had the other vaccines a year earlier before covering a massive earthquake in Iran.
After a long flight via Cairo I found myself in Nairobi, with all my clothes lost somewhere in Africa. The most valuable part of my kit was fortunately still with me: two analogue camera bodies, the usual collection of lenses, a portable darkroom to develop color films, lots of chemicals and the latest in transmission technology, a 35mm film scanner and a T1 PC (the first Reuters photos portable PC) capable of filing a color photo to our London desk in about 22 minutes! This, of course, only if you succeeded in sending all three color separations.
My aim was to be in Mogadishu at least a day ahead of the arrival of the U.S. task force. After a lot of research I found a 12-seater twin engine private plane and a pilot willing to transfer journalists to Somalia. After days of negotiations between a group of correspondents, the Nairobi airport authority, the pilot and a little extra money, we had a deal.
Disastrous,sad and deeply touched by this story ! thanks Yannis for the story
Me and the man with the iPad
By Barry Malone
I never know how to behave when I go to write about hungry people.
I usually bring just a notebook and a pen because it seems somehow more subtle than a recorder. I drain bottled water or hide it before I get out of the car or the plane. In Ethiopia a few years ago I was telling a funny story to some other journalists as our car pulled up near a church where we had been told people were arriving looking for food.
We got out and began walking towards the place, me still telling the tale, shouting my mouth off, struggling to get to the punch line through my laughter and everybody else’s.
Then there was this sound, a low rumbling thing that came to meet us.
I could feel it roll across the ground and up through my boots. I stopped talking, my laughter died, I grabbed the arm of the person beside me: “What is that?” And I realized. It was the sound of children crying. There were enough children crying that — I’ll say it again — I could feel it in my boots. I was shamed by my laughter.
The problem with photojournalism sometimes is that as people in privileged countries often see pictures of suffering people in far off places, they may suffer from compassion fatigue. It is interesting what this anti-hunger campaign did to counter this phenomenon. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/busine ss/media/antihunger-campaign-forgoes-ima ges-of-starving-children.html
The truth is that photographs do not even begin to demonstrate the suffering of people. Words and images are the only thing people have to spread the word that there is inequality in the world, yet they are always remarkably inadequate. It is very easy to put up an immunity to being emotionally moved by such things. There is no guarantee that taking a photograph of someone suffering will help the person.
Therefore, it is extra important that photographers receive the permission of those they photograph, as those who are photographed may not feel the photos are worthwhile. Peoples’ dignity should always be respected.
In the face of famine
Thursday, July 21, 2011 was supposed to be like any other night shift here on the pictures desk in Singapore – selecting, editing, and captioning pictures as they came in from around the world. On the menu would be coverage of National Day in Belgium, Eurozone summit, Tour de France, Europa League soccer, golf, and the daily file from Libya, Yemen and the rest of the Middle East, just to name a few.
In my close to four years working as a pictures sub-editor I’ve seen a large variety of what the world, and life has to offer. The rise and fall of politicians and regimes, tsunamis, earthquakes, athletes celebrating and hanging their heads in scandal-ridden shame, conservative cultures covering up in the name of modesty and liberal cultures baring all in the name of expression, fashion, entertainment, or just for the sake of it.
Through my photographer colleagues around the world, I’ve also witnessed a lot of bloodshed, violence and death. From a little girl clutching her dead mother’s body with her intestines spilling onto the road after a bomb explosion, to relatives reacting following gangland executions, heads and genitalia severed. ‘Soldiers’, ‘rebels’, ‘freedom fighters’, ‘terrorists’ – all killing each other in the name of one ideology or another. All of this, as a news organization we’ve presented to you.
I’ve also seen the images we decided not to distribute — similar gangland executions, but with bodies skinned and dismembered, genitalia placed in severed hands. Images we deemed too gruesome to publish in a newspaper, or simply just unsuitable for any use.
Until today, July 21, I’d thought I had been desensitized enough to be able to handle anything our photographers send in and be able to see the world unfold, and in turn show the world what’s happening right now.
All these years, sitting in my ergonomic desk chair, in the air-conditioned newsroom, drinking cup after cup of iced Milo to keep me going, I’ve always wondered what our photographers go through covering the various disasters and conflicts. The other Global Pictures Desk editors and I are bombarded by hundreds upon hundreds of images every 8-hour shift work. The Global Pictures Desk never shuts down and this flow of pictures is never ending — 3 shifts a day, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. But when I step out of the office I’ve always been able to purge my mind of images that undoubtedly caused nightmares for my colleagues out in the field who actually were there taking the pictures.
thank you for shraing.
we need more people doing this publishing.
Coming from Africa, I too starved. My mom didn’t even had corn flour to feed me and my two younger sisters. It is really sad that kids struggled against obesity in one part of the world and african children died from the lack the basics…food.
“Do as little as you can, even though you think it’s not much”
AUDIO SLIDESHOW: Two Decades, One Somalia
In the 20 years since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled, Somalia has faced hunger, flooding, fighting, suicide attacks, piracy and insurgency.
Prevailing violent conflict inside Somalia makes it difficult if not impossible for aid agencies to reach people.
AlertNet brings you special coverage of the country which has struggled without a strong central government ever since.
Here is a selection of Reuters pictures from 1993 to 2011 on this war-torn country and failed state.
from Our Take on Your Take:
Too busy with pirates
My initial contact with Abdinasir Mohamed Guled was when he submitted a photo to our user-generated content service, called You Witness at the time, now Your View. The caption read "hi reuters" and the location was listed as Mogadishu suqa holaha district. This was enough to peak my attention.
I spoke with Abdinasir, who at the time was busy covering the story of pirates off the Somali coast. Below is his account of his journey from contributor to You Witness to regular stringer for Reuters.
A Somali family arrive at the Elasha Biyaha camp for the internally displaced after they fled from renewed clashes in Mogadishu, May 13, 2009. REUTERS/Abdi Guled
"Before working for Reuters I was working for a local radio station in Mogadishu and for various websites. I was working as a producer and would contribute to CNN.
I do like taking photographs, however it is not always easy in Somalia. One day I took a picture of Ethiopian soldiers walking on the street. They were really annoyed. One of the soldiers asked me what I was doing and I told him I was fixing my camera. He asked me to show him the picture and told me to leave the area. Be careful, always.
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