Hammerl?s wife: What a relief!

News that photojournalist Anton Lazarus Hammerl is alive has ended weeks of hell and waiting.

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News that photojournalist Anton Lazarus Hammerl is alive has ended weeks of hell and waiting.

He had not been heard from since he was captured on April 5. “What a relief. It feels incredible,” said an emotional Penny Sukrajh, his wife, with whom he lives in London with their two children.

Clayson Manyela, spokesperson for the Department of International Relations and Co-operation (Dirco), said the government was not yet able to release more information. But Hammerl was well and not in danger.

This week, two protests – well attended by friends and colleagues of Hammerl, one outside Parliament, arranged by Anso Thom, the other in Hyde Park, Joburg, arranged by Shayne Robinson, Sahm Venter and Peta Krost-Maunder – called on the Libyan government to free Hammerl.

On Thursday Clare Gillis, an American freelancer, made her first call home. She was captured by pro-Gaddafi forces with journalists Jim Foley and Manu Brabo in Libya, but Hammerl was not with them. This news countered earlier hopes that were inspired by news that the South African diplomatic mission, closed during the civil war in Libya, has partially opened to help locate Hammerl. The government’s “cautious optimism” was not paying off.

White House spokesman Jay Carney had told AFP:

“We’re working hard to assist them (the four reporters) in any way we can.” But as Gaddaffi loyalists clashed violently with rebel forces in the western city of Misrata, news broke that Tim Hetherington, the British director and veteran photojournalist, and Chris Hondros, a New York-based photographer, had been killed while covering the violence.

The plight of Hammerl and other journalists captured and caught in crossfire has highlighted the perils of covering conflict.

The news that Hammerl was alive came the day after the screening of the film based on the book The Bang-Bang Club, at the Tribeca fllm festival in New York. The book, by Joao Silva and Greg Marinovitch, records their experiences in the run-up to the 1994 election. Also in the club were Ken Oosterbrook, who was shot in action, and Kevin Carter, who died by his own hand. Silva lost both his legs when he stepped on an anti-personell landmine, covering conflict in Afghanistan last year.

Hammerl met the Bang Bang members after opting out of his photography degree at Pretoria Technikon, now Tshwane University of Technology, in the mid 1990s. Photographer Thys Dullaart recalls that Hammerl, “a briliant student”, began freelancing at The Star, later working at the Saturday Star, before becoming its chief photographer.

Hammerl was an intense young man, struggling to find expression in his craft while meeting the demands of a busy newspaper, and the compromises these made on his highly developed system of aesthetics.

We worked together at both the Saturday Star and The Sunday Independent and he was always sensitive to the sometimes hair-raising circumstances we found ourselves in. He always “got it”.

Hammerl accompanied me to a group interview with the Dalai Lama, and succeeded in capturing the essential quality of that interaction.

He also has a sharp sense of humour and I imagine that in time, he may decide to write about his life as a political football in the killing fields of Libya.

His plight and the news of his safety has endorsed the perception of the determination that is one of his defining characteristics. - Sunday Independent

Source: http://www.iol.co.za/hammerl-s-wife-what-a-relief-1.1060769

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