The Terrifying Silence
Maie Ayoub von Kohl
I had just finished a stretch assignment at the Cameroon area office, then overseeing Chad and the Central African Republic, and was heading back to my “home” location at NYHQ-DOC, then NYHQ-DOI (Division of Information) via Arusha, Tanzania. I was on my way to become DOI’s focal point for the Fourth World Conference on Women Beijing, 1995 and Arusha was the location of the Africa region preparatory conference. That was where I came across magnificent Padmini, who was then UNICEF Representative to Ethiopia and was heading UNICEF’s delegation to the conference. Note: the story of that week spent hunting for vegetarian food in this meat-loving city to successfully feed our dear vegetarian Padmini deserves a chapter in itself (we were eventually adopted by a local Indian family who proceeded to cook for us every evening delicious fresh vegetarian meals!) but this is not the subject of this tale except to say that it was over meals and joint work that we came to know and appreciate each other.
Seeing an additional opportunity to further the cause, Padmini invited me to join the visit with the task of covering with write ups and photos, the dire situation of the populations affected by the famine to share with the rest of the organization and with national committees.
At that time, I was relatively new to UNICEF however I was still very much connected to my original career as a reporter who had covered the civil war in Lebanon for a major international wire service agency (UPI) before serving as assistant spokesperson for UNIFIL, the UN forces patrolling the Israeli/ Lebanese border. I knew nothing of the situation in Ethiopia… like most of the world I had read nothing, seen no photos… Guided by my usual typical enthusiasm, I of course swiftly agreed. Next step was to get DOI’s approval, which Padmini quickly secured. Before I knew it, I found myself on consecutive planes, and on the ground in Korem.
Nothing could have prepared me for the sight that awaited us. An estimated one hundred thousand people lay on the ground dying in the open air. Men, women, children, elders, mothers clutching emaciated children, all reduced to skin and bones, eyes covered with flies, swaddled in the traditional white Ethiopian Gabi or cotton blanket, lay listless on the ground. The silence that reigned was terrifying and the sight chilling. As far as the eye can see body after body slowly dying on the bare ground. Later observers and journalists referred to this as the biblical famine, the scene certainly warranted the name. Nothing, not even five years of bombing, death and destruction of the Lebanese civil war had prepared me for this chilling experience. Within minutes, I found myself separated from the UNICEF group, standing alone in what felt to me like a sea of death in a foreign land. So instinctively I did what I knew to do and what I was there to do. I put my camera and my pen and paper to work and started documenting the tremendous horror, the violation of rights, the human need and the despair of this entire population slowly dying, unknown to the world.
Unknowingly to me at the time, was that our UNICEF team had flown into Korem simultaneously with news photographer journalist Mohamed Amin and journalist Michael Buerk of the BBC whose groundbreaking report of the 1984 Ethiopian famine brought international attention to the crisis and eventually helped start the charity wave that resulted in Live Aid concerts. My assignment was to spend a week at the Ethiopia Country Office writing human interest stories and supplying photos to HQ-DOI and National Committees around the world to support outreach and fundraising campaigns. After that week, and following a short family holiday in nearby Dubai, I was to return to HQ for my Beijing Conference related work.
It was not to be… One day after my arrival in Dubai, I received a call from my HQ colleague to inform me that at the request of the Ethiopia office I was to proceed immediately to London to support the UK National Committee at a press conference to be held at the Foreign Press Association House in London. I was to speak on the situation of children and women in Ethiopia and the humanitarian operation of which UNICEF was part against a backdrop of a full-fledged media war against the Ethiopia regime for “hiding the famine and the deaths” and its refusal to allow the Royal Air Force to airdrop food to affected populations in the country’s highlands.
Off I was on a red eye to London. As any one of you who dealt with the media knew as well as I did, the British media, especially in those days, was the toughest media in terms of challenging questions and “aggressive” behavior. This was going to demand my best.
While Padmini and colleagues spent the night praying that I would not mistakenly compromise the challenging operations on the ground, I spent every minute of the 9 hour trip studying the programme documents, sitreps, interviews that I had collected during my short stay in the country and conjuring all the lessons that I had learned so far in my journalistic career. Thankfully, covering a complex and ruthless civil war for an international wire service and working within UN peacekeeping had prepared me well for the challenge ahead. By the time I landed, I was nervous but prepared.
A sad surprise awaited us at the other end of the trip. Unknown to me and my travel companions, India’s PM Indira Gandhi had been assassinated that night and the news dominated the media. Hmmm too bad, I thought. There will be no one at our press conference… all will be covering the Gandhi story! I was so very mistaken! The Amin and Buerk story had hit the public and by the time I entered the press conference room, accompanied by the Committee’s Press Officer, the place was full. I had hardly finished my intervention when questions were literally “fired” at me from all corners. I did my best and it paid off. Next day coverage of the situation of children and women, the complexities of the operation and UNICEF’s actions was excellent. So much so that UNICEF decided that I should immediately return to Ethiopia to help the Country Office with the wave of journalists (including my husband to be…) that were already descending on Ethiopia. That story including my return to Addis Ababa via Bergen, Norway, in the hull of a cargo plane together with hundreds of boxes transporting military emergency feeding biscuits, and that of my transfer three months later from my DOI post to the post of Emergency Media Officer, Ethiopia Country Office, where I remained for an amazing three years are not included here.
This was the story of the beginning, and the rest is history.
At that time, I was relatively new to UNICEF however I was still very much connected to my original career as a reporter who had covered the civil war in Lebanon for a major international wire service agency (UPI) before serving as assistant spokesperson for UNIFIL, the UN forces patrolling the Israeli/ Lebanese border. I knew nothing of the situation in Ethiopia… like most of the world I had read nothing, seen no photos… Guided by my usual typical enthusiasm, I of course swiftly agreed. Next step was to get DOI’s approval, which Padmini quickly secured. Before I knew it, I found myself on consecutive planes, and on the ground in Korem.
It was not to be… One day after my arrival in Dubai, I received a call from my HQ colleague to inform me that at the request of the Ethiopia office I was to proceed immediately to London to support the UK National Committee at a press conference to be held at the Foreign Press Association House in London. I was to speak on the situation of children and women in Ethiopia and the humanitarian operation of which UNICEF was part against a backdrop of a full-fledged media war against the Ethiopia regime for “hiding the famine and the deaths” and its refusal to allow the Royal Air Force to airdrop food to affected populations in the country’s highlands.
While Padmini and colleagues spent the night praying that I would not mistakenly compromise the challenging operations on the ground, I spent every minute of the 9 hour trip studying the programme documents, sitreps, interviews that I had collected during my short stay in the country and conjuring all the lessons that I had learned so far in my journalistic career. Thankfully, covering a complex and ruthless civil war for an international wire service and working within UN peacekeeping had prepared me well for the challenge ahead. By the time I landed, I was nervous but prepared.
This was the story of the beginning, and the rest is history.
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