[MUSIC]
Nah, no small things to do.
“Besuch the red-capital life in Freiburg with Euron Mehl's dark-o-one,”
or with the channel-type of nebence, which is all about the past. It's our interactive exhibition with the elite tour with Adiogheite and a classic, and the next parvillion, the whole world of red-capital life, the red-capital life, is only a long-term experience. [MUSIC]
You've seen the photographs. Even if you don't know their names, you've seen them. A nine-year-old girl running down a road in Vietnam, naked, screaming her body burning from an A-parm-strike she didn't see coming. A child collapsed in the dust of Sudan,
a virtual-weighting patient they nearby. [MUSIC] Images that stop the world, images that in some cases ended wars, changed the way governments made decisions, and the way ordinary people understood conflicts happening on the other side of the planet.
These photographs of course didn't happen by accident. Someone was there, someone made a choice to go to that place, to point a lens at that moment, to stay when every instinct said, "Leave," photojournalists, the people behind the camera. The ones who believed that if the world could just see what they are seeing,
something might change. It is by any measure one of the most quietly courageous professions on earth. And of course, dangerous.
“>> I think it's kind of from people I couldn't do, and I'm like,”
"Oh, we can cross this management." They're like, "Oh, you ex-military." It's like, "Uh, no, I'm an ex-hosted jail, I'm an ex-host, and I'm like, "Yes." >> What an icebreaker to conversation about. >> Australian photojournalist Nigel Brennan was inspired by these types of images.
Inspired by the change they could bring, and wanted to be part of it. So when a friend called him in 2008 with an opportunity to head to Somalia, to cover the country's ongoing conflict in unrest, as well as the displacement of hundreds of thousands of its own people, he jumped at the chance.
>> Was finally, you know, in a war-to-one country doing what I thought I wanted to do,
and was I, well, sometimes you're going to risk it for the biscuit. >> Little did he know after just four days on the ground, it would be him. It would become the story. >> Later that night, we were allowed to actually leave the room and sit outside on a mad outside and talking to Amanda and obviously the guys that had taken us were listening to the baby
“world service in Somalia, and I can remember hearing a Australian Canadian journalist kidnapped.”
>> Nigel and Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout were kidnapped by Islamist insurgents, an audio that would last 15 months. 15 months of terror. >> Hearing them close, Amanda's door, and then hearing a plate sort of mosquito across a floor and her saying, no, no, no, no, and then just her screaming for hours.
>> An escape attempt. >> So I just literally, you know, best impersonation of you, same bolt, dancing on sand, sprinting, no idea where Amanda is by the stage, as a sort of run past the manoeuvre's house. >> And even some humour.
>> Then the juxtaposition of the whole thing is there I am teaching them yoga with three AKA 47's laying down against the wall, it's just like, oh my god, this is so surreal for like.
>> Nigel and Amanda's story is truly one of the most incredible survival stories you
will hear. >> Like around the 12 month mark for me, I got to a place of acceptance, so this is my life. I have no control. >> My name's Jack Lawrence, welcome to what I support.
I'm looking at the moon in the sky, I'm looking at the moon in the sky, this shouldn't come as a surprise, but I can't sleep. Or am I mine, I'm trying to fight war in my mind, I don't know who's the winner to fight war in my mind, I'm trying to fight war in my mind, I'm trying to fight war in my mind, I'm trying to fight war in my mind, I'm trying to fight war in my mind, I'm trying to fight
war in my mind, I'm trying to fight war in my mind, I'm trying to fight war in my mind, I'm trying to fight war in my mind, I'm trying to fight war in my mind, I'm trying to fight in my mind, I'm trying to fight war in my mind, I'm trying to fight war in my mind, I'm trying to fight war in my mind, I'm trying to fight war in my mind, I'm trying to fight a little place called Spring Ridge. And then I'm in doubt to move to halfway between Mori and
Gunder Wendy. So grew up on a five and a half thousand acre wheat farm wheat and cotton. That's actually my dream to live it just away from civilization and experience that was like where that sort of growing up in that environment. Look, it looked it was a pretty idealic child hotel, you know, driving cars at the age of sort of nine or ten. And had three elder siblings. We were, you know, sort of, I guess, spent a lot of time out on the property, you know, five and a half
thousand acres to explore as well and and be rat bags, you know, with mum sort of telling us to
Get out of the house and, and I sort of just having a playground.
I guess, doing things at Country Kids do, but, you know, had a really nice little community went to a
“very, very small school. I think I went to my primary school was about twenty-five students.”
By a smaller than my daughter's class. Were you a risk take her as a kid? I don't know. Like when I think about that, I don't know. Like, yes, we did stupid things like jump forward, right? It's four wheelers over down banks and landing into water and turn car bonnets behind vehicles. It's a bit of road, you know, through corrugated fields and stuff.
Or surfing behind a car on your shoes and those sorts of things. So I guess Country Kids are sort of risky. Like I said, driving car at the age of nine. Like my mum still tells the story where
we had a gravel road and then a black soil road. So you always have to drive on the black soil.
So that the gravel didn't sort of blow away. And mum said, should you remember driving saying the youth coming the opposite way with just me sort of looking at the steering wheel with her going where the hell's he going? With the family living so remote, Nigel and his brothers would end up at boarding school for six years. And after school, he moved to Sydney to go to university where he would study hospitality
management. But eventually, he gets the travel bug.
“So you know, first trip was to I think it was to Thailand and then I guess as I sort of spread”
further through India and places that I've been to India seven times, which I love. And then pretty much took off overseas for four years, traveled through Europe, worked on media, you know, private media, it's the head-end months to discuss these in France. So I had that real love of I guess, you know, other cultures and came back. I think it was early 2000 with my then girlfriend and she's like, what are you going to do? And I was like, I don't know.
She's like, why don't you go to university? So now at the age of 28, classified as a mature-aged student, Nigel does a Bachelor of Arts. He studies photography and majors in photo journalism. And what point did you mix your interest in journalism and photography together? I finished uni 2003 then spent a year building my
“house up in Bunderberg, 2005, moved back to the UK with my then wife. I think when did I come back?”
I think it was around 2006, marriage fell apart, came back and was actually in the process of starting to help my then dad build their retirement home. So they'd sold the farm in 2005. And there was a job going at the local newspaper in Bunderberg at the Newsman. So applied
for it, putting my portfolio and got a gig and basically hit the ground running. It was fabulous.
I loved it working in a small newspaper. Nigel instantly loves what he's doing. It may just be a small town newspaper, but it was varied. Every day was different, fun and exciting. I can remember doing one gig at that stage. I had like big sideburns and we're going to this drug bust out sort of west of Bunderberg and I rocked up in a paisley shirt, which probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but I said to the council, because then there's massive
marijuana crop. And the guy basically had planted it in the National Park beside his property. So we got him more trouble for planning an international park than planning on his own property, but obviously it was working through it and photographing it. And I said to one of the headcuts, I said, "Oh, they're still my cash oil." And he said, "Look at me, you guys, mate, you seem to know I'm not a lot of that. These drugs. Yeah, I don't even spend years." And then he
basically turned, but all the other journals are channeled on and everyone was there and he said,
"So every single journal has to be getting checked on the white." Chapter two, going to a conflict zone. Eventually Nigel decides he's cut his teeth in local news, and it's time to set his sights on something bigger. But unfortunately at the time and news papers are on the decline, there's not much work around, so he heads back overseas. The picture editor at the career model just said, "Look, you got a great portfolio,
but unfortunately we're not hiring anyone at the moment." Actually, looking for stringers
Freelancers and those sorts of things, so if you want to do that, and I sort ...
about that, and this is sort of a maybe I had back overseas, and I moved to Scotland with a girlfriend,
“so she was the head chef on a private shooting estate after about six months of being in”
Scotland. I started to get itchy feet and had obviously met Amanda a few years prior in Ethiopia, and had the head relationship with Amanda, which was pretty much why my marriage fell apart, and we were reconnected, and she was just asking me what I was doing, and I said, "I'm feeling a bit frustrated, and want to sort of really jump into something that
I'd always been talking about, and that was going into a conflict zone."
For most people that thought of traveling to a war zone is an exactly high on the list of things to experience, but journalists and particularly photo journalists are built differently. The whole reason for being is to go where the stories are, to be on the ground, be present at the moment that matter, however dangerous, however remote, however far outside the boundaries of what most of us would consider safe. Today, it doesn't feel reckless, it's a sense of
purpose, purpose so strong that it overides the part of the brain that's telling you to stay home.
“I believe that the story is worth telling, that the world is better informed than ignorant,”
and that the photograph, the report file from rubble of somewhere most people couldn't find on a map, matters. That was Nigel's thoughts. He wanted to go where others didn't. He wanted to capture moments
that otherwise may be simply lost to the passage of time, and it wasn't his first rodeo
in places others warned not to go. Well, I think it was also about getting sort of off the bait and track a little bit too like, you know, my first trip to Ethiopia where I met Amanda, we went out to the Danico depression, which is the the lowest point on, so I think it's 130 meters below so level or something like that. It is one of the hottest places on Earth too, so temperatures pretty much set around 45 to 50 degrees
all day, and went to photograph the afar tribes that mine salt. They basically go out there for
“10 hours a day in full, you know, couldn't believe it, like pretty much all in jumpers to obviously”
cover themselves from head to toe so that I've been and do that seven days of the week,
and pack it onto camels and then send it to markets. And it was an amazing thing, like everyone's
like your crazy going out there, like your farer, it can be dangerous, and for me it was an adventure, and a way to capture some amazing images. So before the call came from Amanda with the prospect of Somalia, Nigel said he had already tried to make arrangements to head off to Afghanistan, but the red tape and the fact that he was a freelancer made it difficult. So my girlfriend, who was in Scotland, had some links with her her boss with the British military,
who were looking at options for me, being able to get into Afghanistan. Obviously the problem with being a freelancer and not being linked with the media organisation was going to make it harder to try and embed in those sorts of things with the US, and then I try to embed with the strain arm is almost impossible. One of my good nights who I went through a uni with Adam Ferguson is a legendary fellow journalist and Tom Magazine covers and all that sort of stuff. And he just said
working with the US, there was no vetoing of images. They just, they didn't have one of the look where it's with the strier, it's just like we want to basically vet what you're going to print. So he just said, "Hey, guys, I'm trying to get him with the strain forces." So with Afghanistan looking like it was off the table, and Nigel feeling a bit frustrated in his current situation, the call from Amanda came at the perfect time.
And that's when Amanda called and she said, "What are you doing?" I said, "I don't know, I'm feeling a bit frustrated in Scotland," and she said, "Defense again, back into Africa." And I said, "Very thinking," and she said, "Well, thinking we could do a trip to Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia, if you're interested." And I'd obviously been to Ethiopia, had not been to Kenya at that stage, but New Kenya was relatively safe. But, you know, Somalia was
that country, having grown up in the same blackhawk down, it was just like, "That place is pretty hectic." And obviously, started to do a bit of research and reading about it and what had obviously gone on after 89 with, um, sorry, Bayri, the dictator being overthrown,
Then more loads sort of taking over.
asses hand to them with blackhawk down and then running away from Somalia because it was all too
“difficult. And I guess then at, in what in 2008 you had a transitional federal government,”
you know, a proxy puppet sort of government probably in place supported by African Union forces,
and, you know, 95 percent of the rest of the country sort of been controlled by Alshabad,
the terrorist organization. So you may have heard the name Mogadishu, potentially from a film called Blackhawk Down, Ridley Scott 2001 movie. Starring Australian Eric Banner tells the story of what happened there on the third and fourth of October in 1993. But like most films based on real events, knowing the movie and knowing the history are two different things. So about 100 elite U.S. soldiers
would drop by helicopter into the heart of Mogadishu on a mission to arrest two top-lutenants
“of a Somali warlord. It was supposed to take an hour. Instead, they found themselves pinned down”
through a long and terrible night fighting against thousands of heavily armed Somalis. Somali insurgents shot down two American Blackhawk helicopters using rocket propel grenades with both crashing deep in hostile territory. The 15-hour battle that followed left 18 American the dead and 73 injured. Shocking images of American soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu were
seared into the memories of people watching at home. The United States quickly withdrew shortly after, and Somali are already broken was left to its own chaos. That chaos created the perfect conditions for what would come next. Since the collapse of its central government in 1991, Somali had existed in a state of near constant civil war. No functioning state, no reliable institutions, a patchwork of competing
plans, warlords and militias, filling the vacuum where a government should have been. It was by almost any measure, one of the most dangerous places on earth. And then, into that chaos came Alshabab. The fighting was for the control of the nearly a satellite suburb of Mogadishu. The African Union and its Somali government allies lost Thursday's attack to stop Alshabab from using it as a
base to threaten. Alshabab, or the youth movement, has extended its control across the country. It's still fighting for the capital Mogadishu and is yet to enter the seat of the gun. The name translates simply from Arab because the youth. Alshabab originated as a militia within the military wing of the Islamic courts union. An umbrella group that provided a form of de facto governance across much of Somalia until the country was invaded by Ethiopia in December
of 2006. When that invasion came and the Islamic courts union collapsed, Alshabab didn't collapse
“with it. It transformed from a small, relatively, an important part of a more moderate Islamic movement”
into the most powerful and radical armed faction in the country.
Next week, an intelligence report is due to be presented to the U.S. Congress. It reportedly states Alshabab has up to 1,000 foreign fighters in its ranks. From 2007 to 2008, Alshabab established itself as an independent actor gaining prominence as a vehicle of armed resistance against the Ethiopian military occupation. During 2008, the group began rapidly expanding and governing territory for the first time.
Recruits flooded in. New Islamist nationalist fighters swelled Alshabab's ranks from around 400 into the thousands between 2006 and 2008. In '08, the United States officially designated Alshabab a foreign terrorist organization. Their targets were broad and deliberately indiscriminate. Government officials, African Union peacekeepers, aid workers, and journalists. Anyone, essentially, who represented a threat to their control or an outside world,
they wanted to kept out. This was the country Nigel Brennan pointed his camera towards. A country on fire ran in large parts by a militia that had made it very clear that foreigners were not welcome and that the consequences are being caught could be severe.
Chapter three. Intuition is a very powerful thing. How did your family feel about all of this at
The time?
to go on photography. I didn't actually left the part out about Samalins. I said it was going to
“Kenya and a planning trip to Ethiopia. The Samalins trip was seven days. It was basically smashing”
grad in and out. Trying to get some photos, trying to get some stories, and potentially trying to try and sell what to someone. Nigel and Amanda planned their trip, which, as we've mentioned previously, in the story of journalists overseas, like Sean Langen, involved a fixer. Bears was called a juice. A guy that had come recommended to them, and who was in fact going to be working on the ground at the same time with a team from National Geographic. So they had their fixer, their flights
booked, and a plan for what exactly they wanted to try and cover. There was definitely some stories like, obviously, one of the things that we were interested in was trying to go and photograph what was happening at the Kara Market, which is the largest market in Africa, and part of that market they have a weapons sort of market. So basically where you can buy and sell any type of weapon,
“and juice the fixer, basically said there was no way that was going to happen, instead of with”
way to dangerous. Trying to get out, obviously, and cover some of the, I guess, fighting between Alchibob and the interim government forces, that sort of stuff. Again, he just said there's not really a front line. It is sort of, I guess, Alchibob sort of coming in sort of waves of raids and those sorts of things. So it wasn't like there was a front line as such. And then one of the big
things for us was obviously the displacement of people. So, you know, I've our half a million
people that had been displaced from Mogadishu, that were living in IDAP camps. There was also another story that we really interested, which had a Canadian slamp, which was there was an age ship from Canada that was coming to supply aid. And one of the things that we really wanted to try and do, was to follow, you know, obviously, aid from overseas, it then goes to a third party who basically
“has to pay for all of that food to ensure that it gets to the right place. And if it doesn't,”
then they lose their money. And then we'd heard of stories of these guys, obviously, with aid, then basically Alchibob raiding them and basically taking the trucks and distributing the food wherever they wanted. So that was sort of the thing that we were looking at, and then obviously getting into Mogadishu just seeing what was sort of happening as well. Because life still goes on and it was, and that's the surreal thing, like, and the beautiful beaches and those sorts of things
where people were still sort of, you know, going to the beach and swimming and even in a, you know, city that was completely water and decimated.
Nigel and Amanda arrive in Somalia. They would spend the first three days traveling around
visiting some feeding stations and out on patrol with the African Union forces. They visit a sort of makeshift hospital. They talk with people, trying to find out what was happening on the ground in Mogadishu, doing what journalists do. Everything was essentially going as planned. That was until day four. So the night before we would set down with the juice, and obviously organized everything that we were doing. We wanted to go to the smaller of the five-eyed data
he camps, that they had at that 60-hours and people living there. We'd obviously heard through a juice that, you know, living conditions were pretty bare, so they were running water, you know, sewage system, those sorts of things, very limited board of food, stories of alchibob sort of rating those camps at night and kidnapping women or raping women. We sat down the night before with the juice organized extra security. So again, like,
you know, for the first three days we'd constantly had two guys without K-47s pretty much chef-heading us to ensure that we were safe while we're moving around Mogadishu. Which is something normally, you know, we would say to journalists when we try and then you don't generally have weapons in vehicles, because it sort of reduces your neutrality. But certainly there are countries in the world, as a journalist where you need some sort of weaponry to ensure your safety.
But we'd organized with the juice to have an extra three guys, so it was expecting that data to have five guys basically traveling with us with AK-47s to ensure that we were safe from wearing the archibob camp. These men with AK-47s have been arranged by Nigel and Amanda's fixer. When you're in a country like Somalia, where you don't speak the language, you don't necessarily
understand it's culture, the lay of the land, a journalist has to put incredible amounts of trust
In their fixer.
jump in the car, and head off for another day of chasing stories.
“So when we left the hotel, we had our two security detail in the vehicle and it had been explained to”
us that we would pick up the extra security detail five kilometers outside of Mogadishu. So once we sort of got past the city limits, we'd pick up an extra security detail and we sort of stopped on the outskirts of, I guess, the city, the two guys in the back with the AK-47s jumped out. And we had an interpreter, Abdi, who spoke really good English, and he was also working as Amanda's cameraman, and I've just said to Abdi what's going on and he said, "Oh, these guys are
basically seen as transitional government forces." And if they found in a militia run area, they'll basically be taken from the car and executed. So they have to stay here. So that led you with no security whatsoever. That led you with no security whatsoever.
“And that was not really ever explained to us that that was what was going to happen because I”
would never have agreed, you know, the night before, if it just had a said boy, you're going
to have to drive three to five kilometers without any security, then I would have said, well, that same, you know, that's just stupidity. Yeah. But at this point, you're in a situation where it's kind of like, well, we're on our way now. Well, I guess at that point too, it was just like, well, what do we do? Do we go back to the hotel and basically the day is done. It's it's nine o'clock in the morning. We can't really organize anything else. A juice was out with the National Geographic
Times, so having access to him was going to be hard when he was on the road, those sorts of things. I guess a man or a sort of disgusted very quickly and just said, well, like, this is what we sort of, this is the plan for today. So let's just punch through and we'll drive the three cows or whatever it is to pick up our extra security, don't tell them, you know, that was a decision we made to take that risk. A risk they couldn't know at the time was about to cost them 15 months of their lives.
Although Nigel does say prior to leaving though hotel, his intuition was trying to warn him of something. It was weird, like, when we're in the hotel, the morning in the morning before we left. It was almost like my intuition was trying to tell me something, and I wasn't listening, and I actually thought I was going to have gastro or something, because I kept going backwards to the toilet. I was just like, oh, man, it's something wrong with my tummy. It just doesn't feel
good. And every time I went to the toilet, nothing happened, I'd come back and just had that
tight knot in my stomach. And intuitions, you know, an incredibly powerful thing.
And I just didn't pick up on the queues.
“I can remember being in, I was in the backseat behind the front passenger.”
So it was actually, like, abdien Amanda was sort of talking and, you know, being quite jovial and joking and that sort of stuff. And I was interacting with them, sort of deleting photos of my digital camera. And I can remember looking up the road of one stage and seeing a calf flashing its lights and sort of on the crest of the hill maybe a K-K-1/2 through the down the road. So to abdien what sat and I said, oh, that's probably our security detail and just was like,
okay, that's that same normal. And went back to my camera again, slowly deleting the images from the day before, or I'd been out with African Union forces. And, you know, with the car sort of came to us, you know, we started to slow down. It's, it's come to us stop and I've sort of looked up and looked over my right shoulder and seen a guy literally running towards the car, masked face, okay, 47 to a shoulder and then quickly scanned around the vehicle and watched more
sort of guys running towards us. And then my door opens, I'm pulled out of the car and
literally pushed face first down on the, on the sand, on the side of the road.
I'm in a manner and I have to, and the two drivers were brought around to my side of the vehicle, all of them were pushed down, and pretty much then picked up and, you know, told to get up and then get into the back seat of Toyota Land Cruiser. It's so good! It's one of the
Assailants now sitting in with us, so there's six of us pretty much in the ba...
guys with our car, he's jumping the back and then a new driver jumps in and another guy pointing
“a pistol back at us. And then the car literally just takes off. So the two vehicles, the vehicle,”
that some, I'd say, flashing lights, sort of took the lead and we weren't straight off the
man road and literally across country.
“Nigel and Amanda don't know where they're going, who's taken them or what's going to happen next.”
Like Amanda and I are obviously talking and we've been kidnapped, like shit we've been kidnapped.
They also don't know that this is only the beginning of a 15 month ordeal.
“Like around the 12 month mark for me, I got to a place of acceptance. So this is my life, I have no control.”
Next time, on what I survive. . Nah, no plans for such a end. Besuch the road kept in a leapness world in Freiburg with a car and a car, or with a car from a life-long life, all the years. And that's our interactive exhibition with the elite tour with Adiogheite and a classic
and the next adventure, the whole world of road kept in the road kept in the lead.
