 
| Subject: | |
| From: | |
| Reply To: | |
| Date: | Thu, 25 May 2000 18:31:05 -0700 |
| Content-Type: | text/plain |
| Parts/Attachments: |
|
|
latest
Thursday, May 25, 2000
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (Reuters) - Reuters
photographer Yannis
Behrakis had a narrow escape from a rebel
ambush that killed
Reuters correspondent Kurt Schork and
Associated Press journalist
Miguel Gil in Sierra Leone's civil war.
Behrakis, 39, gave this account of the
ambush Wednesday on a
road near Rogberi Junction, 54 miles east
of the capital Freetown:
"The soldiers at Rogberi said the fighting
had moved toward
Lunsar, 11 miles to the east. The
commander said it was okay to
go there and gave some soldiers to escort
us there.
"About four miles down the road we could
hear the heavy
anti-aircraft gun that the soldiers were
using up ahead. We
passed through the village of Matekete
which was deserted apart
from a couple of soldiers who said it was
safe to go on.
"Then some way outside the village I saw
about 10 armed guys in
T-shirts jump up from a bank raised up on
the left-hand side of
the road. They started shooting with
automatic rifles.
"The first thing I saw was Kurt getting
hit in the head.
"I was sitting in the back and I told the
soldier on my right to open
the door and jump out. But he was dead.
"The soldier on the left jumped over me
and over the dead soldier
and out of the window. The door had
jammed. Somehow I pushed
the guy out of the window and opened the
door.
"The car was still moving and I ran into
the bush. I saw Mark
(Reuters television cameraman Mark
Chisholm) managed to get out
of the car too.
"There was a lot of shooting and for a
second I saw Miguel's car
behind getting hit. The bush was very
thick there and I just ran
for 50 meters and hit the ground.
FIRING FROM ALL DIRECTIONS
"Fire was coming from all over the place,
from the rebels and the
remaining soldiers. I was on the same side
of the road as the
rebels and I started crawling away from
them.
"I was wearing a white T-shirt so I
smeared mud and leaves on my
face and on the shirt so I would not be
seen. The bullets were
flying all around and I hit the ground and
found some very thick
bush.
"At one point some of the rebels walked
past five yards away but
didn't see me.
"Then the soldiers further down the road
heard all this shooting
and came back. They opened fire with the
heavy machine gun.
They were shooting very close to where I
was hiding.
"I waited for three hours and then I moved
parallel to the road.
There was some more shooting so I waited
some more.
"Then I decided to go back to the road.
About 500 yards back I
saw our car and I saw Miguel's car. The
cars were burned, full of
bullet holes and there was a lot of blood
around but there were no
bodies.
"I put my camera around my neck and walked
back along the road
the way we had come. All the way back to
Rogberi. Mark was
already there with our dead friends and
the four dead SLA
soldiers."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
