Silence

Bourgiba Avenue, Tunis, Jan. 15, 2011

Faced with logistical and safety challenges, my New York Times colleague David Kirkpatrick and I decided to switch hotels on the morning of January 15. We went first to Hotel Africa, where we had both taken refuge the day before, to see if it would be a good option.

I knew many other journalists were staying there, some of whom were scattered throughout the lobby when we arrived. I introduced myself to a group of photographers sitting close to the front desk and asked how they felt about the hotel and if it seemed relatively secure.

The mood of this group was somber. They spoke quietly to one another in French, while one guy paced back and forth, looking extremely worried. When I asked what was wrong, one of them said, "Our friend, a photographer, was shot in the head with a tear gas canister yesterday."

On January 14, when the first volleys of tear gas fell on Bourguiba Avenue and protesters ran from the police, a group of six photographers--four French, one Swiss and one Belgian--ran with them. Working as a team in order to keep each other safe, the photographers followed the demonstrators into the smaller streets near the city center, documenting the clashes as they went.

Here is the photographers' account of what happened, in a statement they released a couple of days later:

"...At 4:23PM, Tunisian police force shot a teargas canister in our direction. The projectile, an aluminum cylinder around 20cm long and 5cm diameter, shot horizontally at head level from a distance of less than 20 meters, hit our colleague Lucas Mebrouk Dolega to the head. We gave him first help on the spot, and within a few moments evacuated him in a colleague's car first to 'Le Secours' clinic where Lucas' condition was stabilized before being transported in a neighbor's car to Tunis Rabta Neurologic Hospital. Lucas was immediately operated upon by Professor Djmal. The operation was successful and Lucas was maintained in an artificial coma.

The diagnostic was: extradural left frontal hematoma, meningeal hemorrhage, fractured left sinuses, fractured left orbit, lesion to the left eye.

His condition after the operation was considered stable but critical. Hope was that Lucas would survive notwithstanding the loss of his left eye.

His condition worsened overnight, his coma deepened. His family arrived in Tunis on January 16.

Loucas Von Zabiensky-Mebrouk, a.k.a. Lucas Dolega, died this morning, January 17 at Rabta hospital in Tunis, surrounded by his family, spouse, and friends."

January 15, the day after President Ben Ali resigned and fled to Saudi Arabia, was difficult in ways I had never before experienced. I tried to shake off the news that a colleague, a photographer like me, had been gravely injured. I was advised by my new French friends not to go out shooting--it was simply too unstable and unpredictable, they said. They were visibly shaken by all that had happened in the past 24 hours.

But I felt like I had to try. Finding a driver on that day was impossible, so after we checked in to Hotel Africa, I asked David if he would take a short walk with me in the area, just to test the water. At around noon, we walked to the end of the avenue. I don't remember seeing a single civilian on the street--it was almost completely silent. I went to the roof of a building and took the photograph at the top of this blog post. It is my single image from that day, a deserted, ghost-like Bourguiba Avenue, the street still graced by posters of Ben Ali and guarded by Tunisian Army tanks. (Hotel Africa is the tallest building on the right side of the photograph.)

We decided to walk back toward the hotel on a parallel street just one block west of the main avenue. Within minutes, we were stopped by police, young men wearing white vests over their civilian clothes and carrying truncheons. We showed them our press IDs and started to walk away. One of them said, "I want your camera. Give it to me." He took a few steps toward us, but I said, "No," and kept walking. He called after me again, but I didn't turn around and started walking faster.

I was getting a bad feeling. It was time to head back to the hotel. My day was over and we had only been outside for 30 minutes. When we returned, I learned that a photographer had been chased by a mob of young men and had to hide in someone's home until he was safely able to exit the area. Late in the afternoon we spotted snipers on the tops of the buildings along the avenue. The hotel staff went from room to room telling guests to close their windows and draw the shades.

Besides the concern for our injured colleague's welfare, I myself felt truly vulnerable. I know I am not the only person who miscalculated what would happen in Tunisia and the effect it would have on the whole region, but I was unprepared for the violence. It had never occurred to me that tear gas could be lethal, and there I was without so much as a bike helmet. And now it appeared that we had even bigger problems to worry about. I had left my body armor at home, as had numerous colleagues who arrived in Tunis before January 14.

I wish I could say that this combination of events had no effect on the quality of my work, but I would be lying. I also don't write about it here to make excuses. I only want to acknowledge that it affected me. It is important to remember that some things are more important than work.

We are not machines. These things matter.