THE RORY PECK AWARDS 2007
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Farah Roble Aden - Somali
Somalia ReportsWinner: The Rory Peck Award for Hard News
This footage shows very close-to-the-action fighting in Mogadishu, after the Islamic courts militias were ousted by Ethiopian backed Somali Government troops. Subsequent attacks forced thousands of civilians to flee their homes while even more were injured and killed in the fighting. Farah Roble Aden was arrested several times and his camera was confiscated. After the murder of three of his colleagues from HornAfrik, Reuters asked Farah to stop covering this story until they could work out whether the killings were deliberately targeting journalists.
The judges felt that this piece of work clearly showed the human misery that comes in the wake of fighting.
“This is what good, frontline, war coverage can be like. It is calm, clearly-shot, good quality footage from a place that is so dangerous we don’t get to see much that is happening there.”
Cameraman's Comment
“This was very dangerous. On some shots you can hear bullets ricocheting off walls as the camera is rolling. I hope that my coverage would show the world the real situation inside Somalia. I have lost friends and relatives over many years here. Two colleagues at HornAfrik were injured in April 2007. Three months later – Ali Iman Sharmake – founder of HornAfrik was killed in an explosion.”
Biography
Farah Roble Aden was born in 1965 in Kismayu, Somalia. He started working in television in 1997 as a researcher/assistant producer for UNESCO in Nairobi. In 2001 he returned to Mogadishu to freelance as a producer for HornAfrik and two years later began to freelance for Reuters. When Ethiopian troops joined the Somali Army and started taking back towns from the Islamic Courts militias, he was one of the few journalists who covered the situation from the beginning, filming the aftermath of mortars, roadside bombs and rockets into civilian areas as militiamen attacked government forces.
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