UN Baghdad hotel bombing survivors: Francis Mead
Introduction:
It has been 15 years since the terrorist attack on the UN compound at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad: “the darkest day in our lives at the United Nations”, in the words of the Secretary-General at the time, Kofi Annan.
The truck bomb killed 22 international and local staff, including the top UN representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
Current and former staff who survived the blast on 19 August 2003 have been reflecting on the tragedy, which marked the first time the UN was deliberately targeted on a massive scale.
At the time of the blast, veteran television producer Francis Mead was undertaking a new challenge in Iraq: reporting for the UN humanitarian news agency, IRIN.
He was at the Canal Hotel that afternoon for a press briefing.
It was disrupted by a loud crash. And then everything went black.
It has been 15 years since the terrorist attack on the UN compound at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad: “the darkest day in our lives at the United Nations”, in the words of the Secretary-General at the time, Kofi Annan.
The truck bomb killed 22 international and local staff, including the top UN representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
Current and former staff who survived the blast on 19 August 2003 have been reflecting on the tragedy, which marked the first time the UN was deliberately targeted on a massive scale.
At the time of the blast, veteran television producer Francis Mead was undertaking a new challenge in Iraq: reporting for the UN humanitarian news agency, IRIN.
He was at the Canal Hotel that afternoon for a press briefing.
It was disrupted by a loud crash. And then everything went black.