“My body is emaciated, I no longer have the ability to walk. »The freezing testimony of Bashar, AFP photographer in Gaza, published on social networks, illustrates the extent of the human drama that is currently playing in the Palestinian enclave. His brother, he said, died of hunger. He himself says he is close to total exhaustion.
In a statement of rare severity, the AFP journalists’ union (SDJ) launched a cry of alarm: several local journalists from the agency in Gaza, employees or freelancers, are today threatened to starve. A first in the history of the agency, founded in 1944.
AFP still has a freelance editor, three photographers and six videographers working in extreme conditions in Gaza. “We refuse to see them die,” alerts the SDJ, which urges the management of the agency, but also the French and international authorities, to do everything to evacuate these colleagues and their families.
“It is no longer just a question of exercising journalism in a context of war, but of surviving the total collapse of any form of supplies or humanitarian aid,” denounces a member of the union.
Faced with the severity of the situation, AFP indicates working actively on their evacuation, despite the administrative, security and logistical blockages linked to the blockade imposed on Gaza. According to several NGOs, the Gaza Strip is currently going through the worst humanitarian crisis in its history, with a real risk of generalized famine.
While journalists are often the last witnesses of the war, their survival is now at stake. AFP alert recalls that behind the images broadcast worldwide, it is vulnerable and abandoned human lives, which are still trying to testify.
