MIGUEL GIL MORENO (1968-2000)

Even the most war-hardened journalists must have felt a cold shiver of shock on the day that Miguel Gil Moreno was shot dead by rebels from Sierra Leone. Miguel was killed close to where he had recently shot his last pictures, which were images of a massacre of UN troops. The death of Miguel, who was just 32 years old, deprives television news of the cameraman who shot some of the most compelling and powerful images of war. Miguel did not start out as a photographer or journalist, but as a lawyer. After graduating from Barcelona Central University Law School, he practised law at a city firm before studying Human Rights at the Centre for Human Rights in Barcelona. Miguel believed wholeheartedly in the right and obligation to bear witness and to report. He soon gained himself a reputation for, unequalled brilliance in photographing human suffering during conflicts. He worked in dangerous places such as Kosovo, the Congo and Sierra Leone. In 1998, he won the Rory Peck Award for his Kosovo coverage. How many people will be brave enough, like him, to go where the perpetrators of war would rather no one went? How many will carry on the work of bringing the ugly and brutal truth into our comfortable lives?