The forgotten wars

Central African Republic and Somalia trip

Part One.

Time is never my friend. I never have the time to write and create at the moment. It has been a while since I got back to this substack and it plagues my mind to continue writing. So bear with me.

I always planned to write. Finish this book of adventures. Of recent I have been working for an entrepreneur and business mentor. It’s been good. A stable job that given me a place to call home in Australia. Through work we raised money for UNICEF in one immersion events.

Over $200,000 in a few hours on Sunday infact. The students raised the money and my boss, Aaron Sansoni. In a last moment notice, my boss asked me to go on stage and I gave a speech about the importance of humanitarian work and what it is like

I decided to hit up UNICEF to do photos with the goal of showing the students where the money goes and the good it can achieve. It took a while to get in motion but finally it came up the trip. It would be Somalia and Central African Republic, two countries I had been before working a war photographer.

Mogadishu was probably the closest I came to being the closest to being killed I would say. I was filming in an ambulance as we went through an Al Shabaab checkpoint. Unfortunately they didn’t send us warning shots, they shot into the ambulance killing the driver and paramedic. All I remember was flying into the windscreen and then to the back of the van. I was knocked out cold.

Then I woke up to the nightmare. My video camera was stolen, I was covered in blood and the driver was dead. Al Shabaab was gone though, laughing away down the street with whatever loot they got from the ambulance. Adrenaline but mostly fear filled my body. I couldn’t stop shaking but I needed to move. I needed to find safety.

I pulled the lifeless body of the driver into the back of the ambulance and assumed driving. I remember I did not for the life of me know where to go. Which way to safety. To the hospital. To the government checkpoint. That was the scariest part.

Luckily I managed to drive somewhere that looked familiar. I saw a government checkpoint and they saw me and directed me to the hospital. I hoped they would of taken over the driving but they pointed the direction I needed to go.

Once I was at the hospital and the staff pulled out the paramedic and the driver I felt relief. It came out in tears. I felt dumb. Stupid to be a freelancer.

If I died today, nobody would really be coming to collect me. I was doing all this for money I felt. Money to see my daughter Mia who had just been born. Getting stories from places no one can get to paid very fucking well and Somalia was the wild west.

But things like this happen for you, not to you. I regain some sort of courage under fire and from then on, every other warzone I retained composure under fire. My only fear however was dragging another person into this mess.

I came back however several times more to Mogadishu and experienced much safer trips. I helped organise TED X and a music festival. Somalia was a much better place than it was in 2009 when I first went.

CAR, Central African Republic, was just as crazy, I think it was 2013 when I went there, photographing and shooting video for Associate Press. The city had ascended to madness. I remember a man killing another man and eating his heart.

Same as Sth Sudan, soldiers cutting off their enemies arms and dancing around with them flopping around to some sort of reggae music. What humans can do to other humans can be unspeakable.

The years had taken its toll on me, physically and mentally but that desire to travel and see the world and progress in these countries makes me leave the comfort zone.

Luckily I amass alot of “Time in Leiu” from work and so I cashed in the hours to buy my ticket and volunteer my time and I was on my way with one of the media liasions Meg to Somalia first.

We were planning to go to a town called Daadaab by the Ethiopian border, relatively safe and do some stories. Al Shabaab presence is quite minimal and the area suffered from famine and climate change. Harsh flooding.

The camps were filled with many fleeing the conflict. Mostly women and children were in the camps. The men generally stayed in their home towns or headed to the capital to find work.

During one of our events in Sydney I was working at, I left halfway through with my bags and cameras and met up with the UNICEF media liasion Meg and started our journey.

I remember eating at Pappa Rich, getting Malaysian roti and beef rendang, probably my favourite dish I could eat forever. Meg had the Congee and burnt her lip badly.

The journey was long and I spent it watching movies I probably never go watch in the cinemas, the action blockbusters. All the way we got questioned by airport security on going to Somalia.

This later on stuffed me up with going to work in the USA cause Somalia is one of the seven naughty countries not to go to.

So this is a small break from Afghanistan adventures and I will get back to them soon. So enjoy the tales and pretty pictures.

Via Roma, Mogadishu 2012

A mother and child in a makeshift tent, Dallow 2025

Salim, a young Somali boy in a rabbit suit who I managed to get his portrait and save him from a beating from his mother. Mogadishu, 2013