BATTLING BBC journalist CAROLINE WYATT talks to Emily Bright about how she faced Taliban attacks, an MS diagnosis and a crisis of faith
‘W
E almost got blown up twice in one day,’ remembers BBC journalist and former defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt. ‘We were covering the presidential election in Afghanistan in 2009 and were leaving a pretty dull but important press conference. We took one step out of the Helmand governor’s house and, as we did so, a bomb landed in the garden next door. Thank God there was a really high wall, which stopped the shrapnel from the bomb hitting us. ‘We hit the ground in our flak jackets and helmets. The cameraman turned his camera back on and filmed the aftermath. That was the beginning of election day for us. ‘We were taken to a safe house and watched for two hours as the Taliban shelled the town to stop people going out to vote. We eventually persuaded our security team to allow us to go to a polling station in a lightly armoured vehicle and carry on filming. ‘As we were driving, there was this massive bump and bang. We’d driven 8 • War Cry • 18 July 2020
over an improvised explosive device but it hadn’t gone off fully. I gave enormous thanks. On days like that, I knew there was a God who was looking after us. ‘I then spoke to women who were voting at the polling station, some for the first time. It was amazing. Afghan women are resilient and phenomenally brave.’ Caroline says such moments of engaging with normal yet extraordinary people have been the highlights of her career. ‘When I was a correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq, it was a privilege to talk to the people living there. Sitting down with a farmer’s wife in Helmand and discussing her hopes and fears has stayed with me far longer than talking to any president or prime minister.’ Some may find such a statement surprising given Caroline’s CV, which spans 30 years at the BBC. She has been a foreign correspondent in Berlin after reunification, as well as in Bonn, Paris and Moscow. She covered the Kosovo conflict
in 1999 and was embedded with British troops during the Iraq invasion of 2003. She became defence correspondent in 2007, and then in 2014 switched to religious affairs correspondent, with only a weekend turnaround between the two jobs. When I mention this, I detect a chuckle at the end of the phone line as she recalls the rapid transition, but she adds: ‘It wasn’t as big a change as you might think. ‘One of the first stories I covered was what happened with the Yazidis in northern Iraq, when Isis was taking territory. I was back in my flak jacket and helmet. Although my title by then was religious affairs correspondent, the fundamentals of reporting are the same: go and talk to people affected, find out what is happening, and don’t be misled by any propaganda, gossip or rumour. Then talk to more people to make sure your story stands up and makes sense.’ Each answer Caroline gives is delivered
We’d driven over an improvised explosive device
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