Shah Marai, the AFP chief photographer in Kabul, has been killed in a bomb attack that seems to have deliberately targeted journalists who had rushed to the scene of a suicide attack in the Afghan capital some 15 minutes earlier. IS have claimed responsibility.
From an AFP Correspondent piece by Marai, written in 2016:
I began working as a photographer for AFP under the Taliban, in 1998.
They hated journalists, so I was always very discreet -- I always made sure to put on the traditional shalwar kameez outfit when going outside and I took pictures with a small camera that I hid in a scarf wrapped around my hand. The Taliban restrictions made it extremely difficult to work -- they forbid the photographing of all living things, for example, be they men or animals.
One day I was taking pictures of a line outside a bakery. Life at the time was hard, people were without work, prices were going through the roof. Some Taliban approached me.
“What are you doing?” they demanded.
“Nothing,” I answered. “I’m taking pictures of the bread!”
Luckily this was in the age before digital cameras, so they couldn’t check to make sure I was telling the truth....
Today the Taliban are again everywhere and we are stuck in Kabul most of the time. T-Walls, those concrete blocks designed to protect against booby-trapped cars and trucks, have sprouted all over the city. People are no longer friendly toward someone with a camera. Often they become aggressive. People don’t trust anyone, especially someone working for a foreign news agency -- ‘are you a spy?” they ask.
Fifteen years after the American intervention, the Afghans find themselves without money, without work, just with the Taliban at their doorstep. With the withdrawal of essential Western troops in 2014, many foreigners have left and have been forgotten, as have the billions of dollars poured into this country.
I long for those years, immediately following the arrival of the Americans. Of course the city has changed a lot since 2001. New buildings have been built, large avenues have replaced tiny streets. The signs of war have all but disappeared -- except for the old Darulaman royal palace, you won’t see a ruin in the city. The stores are full and you can find almost anything.
But there is no more hope. Life seems to be even more difficult than under the Taliban because of the insecurity. I don’t dare to take my children for a walk. I have five and they spend their time cooped up inside the house. Every morning as I go to the office and every evening when I return home, all I think of are cars that can be booby-trapped, or of suicide bombers coming out of a crowd. I can’t take the risk. So we don’t go out.
There's a gallery of some of Marai's Afghan photos at the Atlantic - Remembering Photojournalist Shah Marai:
He began covering events in Afghanistan for AFP in 1998, first as a stringer, later a staff photographer, working his way up to chief photographer. In those 20 years, AFP distributed more than 18,000 of his photos, documenting the horrors of war, but also everyday life—including the struggles of ordinary Afghans and the beauty of the landscape.
Afghanistan's first female pilot Niloofar Rahmani, 23, poses for a photograph at an air force airfield in Kabul on April 26, 2015. With a hint of swagger in her gait, Rahmani is defying death threats and archaic gender stereotypes to infiltrate an almost entirely male preserve.
Clouds gather as precipitation falls over the Hindu Kush mountains during a flight between Kabul and Kunduz on April 30, 2015.
Five-year-old Afghan boy Murtaza Ahmadi, a young Lionel Messi fan, plays football in Kabul on February 1, 2016.
An Afghan man watches as election workers count votes at a polling station in Kabul on August 21, 2009. Contenders in the race to become Afghanistan's next president claimed to be heading for victory in polls acclaimed by the West but undermined by complaints of ballot-stuffing and low turnout.
[Photos: Shah Marai / AFP / Getty]
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