Overcoming security concerns and limited access, an AP all-formats team takes a fresh, revealing look at humanitarian crises intensified by climate change.
Early this year, as it became clear that the effects of prolonged drought in Somalia could go from bad to catastrophic, East Africa correspondent Cara Anna and the AP’s Africa leadership team spent months trying to arrange a trip.
Reporting from war-torn Somalia is difficult — terrorist groups operate in much of the country. But Anna convinced the World Food Program to host the AP, arguing that AP’s reach would help readers worldwide understand the multiple crises affecting Somalia.
A Somali woman and child wait to be given a place to settle at a camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 20, 2022.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
Mohamed Ahmed Diriye arrives with others at a displacement camp on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 20, 2022.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
People arrive at a displacement camp on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 21, 2022.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
Abdiyo Barre Ali, right and Abdiyo Ali Abdi recite poetry at a camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 21, 2022. In Somalia, a nation of poets, droughts are named for the kind of pain they bring. There was Prolonged in the 1970s, Cattle Killer in the 1980s, Equal five years ago for its reach across the country. A decade ago, there was Famine, which killed a quarter-million people. The current drought has no name yet.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
Issack Farow Hassan, 75, left, and Mohamed Kheir Issack, 80, stand outside Issack’s shelter at a camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 20, 2022. The two blind men are friends and as close as brothers, gripping each other's hands in their mutual darkness as tightly as they hold their canes. Nearing the end of their lives, Somalia’s most alarming drought in more than half a century has stripped them of their animals and homes.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
Issack Farow Hassan, 75, left, and Mohamed Kheir Issack, 80, sit in Issack’s shelter at a camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 20, 2022. The two blind men are friends and as close as brothers, gripping each other's hands in their mutual darkness as tightly as they hold their canes.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
Huts made of branches and cloth provide shelter to Somalis displaced by drought at a camp on the outskirts outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 19, 2022. A rare formal famine declaration could be made within weeks. Climate change, drought and fallout from the war in Ukraine are in part to blame.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
Water is distributed at a camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 20, 2022.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
The remains of dead livestock and a donkey are scattered at a camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 21, 2022.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
Fartum Issack, right, and her husband Adan stand by the grave of their 1-year-old daughter at a displacement camp on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 19, 2022. The graveyard opened in April,with room for hundreds more graves.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
A Somali man takes shelter at a camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 20, 2022.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
Newly arrived displaced people wait for allocation of plots on at a camp on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 19, 2022.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
Two women walk near the Ethiopian border on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 20, 2022.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
Men and women stand at a camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 19, 2022.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
Hamdi Yusuf, a malnourished child, is held by her mother in Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 21, 2022. She was little more than skin and bones when her mother found her unconscious, two months after arriving in the camps, living on scraps of food offered by neighbors.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
Girls attend a class at a school in Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 19, 2022. At midday, dozens of hungry children from the camps for displaced persons try to slip into a local primary school where the World Food Program offers a rare lunch program for students.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
A girl eats at a school in Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 19, 2022.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
Students eat at a school in Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 19, 2022. At midday, dozens of hungry children from the camps for displaced persons try to slip into a local primary school where the World Food Program offers a rare lunch program for students.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
A woman holds a child at a clinic in Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 21, 2022.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
A malnourished child sits at a clinic in Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 21, 2022. Within weeks, a famine could be formally declared in Somalia, affecting hundreds of thousands of people. Such a declaration is rare and a sign of the dire consequences from the worst drought in decades in the Horn of Africa.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
Somalis who have been displaced settle at a camp on the outskirts of Dollow, Somalia, Sept. 19, 2022.
AP Photo / Jerome Delay
At the same time, Anna and Climate team editors brainstormed possible subjects for an ongoing series looking at people who are forced to relocate, displaced by climate change. Somalia’s drought, exacerbated by climate change and insecurity, has forced major migration, both internally and across borders.
By the time the United Nations warned in August that a famine may soon be declared, AP had received a grant from the Pulitzer Center to fund the trip for two all-formats packages: one on climate migration, the other focused on the drought and the growing humanitarian crisis.
AP senior video journalist Nqobile Ntshangase shoots footage at a camp for drought-displaced people in southern Somalia, September 2022.
AP Photo / Cara Anna
Anna, Africa chief photographer Jerome Delay and senior video producer Nqobile Ntshangase spent several days amid the heat and dust, constantly ringed by armed security as they conducted numerous interviews and gathered striking images to convey the unfolding crisis.
In the course of their reporting, the journalists met two blind men who are close friends — compelling lead subjects for the migration story. The following day, the team tracked the men down in the growing camp of displaced persons, gathering as much material as they could in limited time, given security considerations, afternoon prayers and curfew.
The story was turned around quickly, produced by the Climate desk: Photo editor Alyssa Goodman worked with Delay on a photo edit and presentation, video editor Teresa De Miguel produced the consumer video piece with Ntshangase, and news editor Dana Beltaji worked with Anna on the text edit.
While many news organizations have covered the drought, and some have done stories from hard-hit areas, none have looked at the crisis through the lens of climate migration or the particular challenges facing disabled people, who are among the most vulnerable. The story, photos and video were widely used, including The Washington Post, USA Today, MSN, Yahoo and more.
The impact was immediate, garnering the attention of top U.N. officials. Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the U.N. secretary general, wrote Anna in an email: “What a powerful story on Somalia. You and your visual colleagues did an amazing job. No doubt it will get people to pay attention to this under reported crisis.” Martin Griffiths, U.N. undersecretary for humanitarian affairs, tweeted the story to his 135,000 followers:
And Griffiths’ spokeswoman tweeted: “If you read only one thing today, make sure it’s this story ...”
But the team wasn’t done. Working with AP’s Enterprise desk, Anna, Ntshangase and Delay produced another package on the impact of drought and how it has led to severe hunger and the deaths of thousands. Enterprise news editor Janelle Cogan worked with Anna, editing the story and an explainer on famine, while multiformat journalist Allen Breed produced the consumer video using Ntshangase’s footage and Delay’s drone video. Goodman again worked with Delay on the photo edit and presentation, and climate data journalist Mary Katherine Wildeman analyzed data for a graphic showing food insecurity spreading to more of the Somali population.
The famine coverage was used by the Los Angeles Times, Toronto Star and others, and was tweeted to hundreds of thousands of followers by the CEO of Save the Children and by the International Rescue Committee.
For unique, compelling coverage of emerging humanitarian crises on the Horn of Africa, the team of Anna, Delay and Ntshangase takes AP’s Best of the Week — Second Winner honors.
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