CNN‘s Clarissa Ward has revealed she and her team were held captive by a militia for two days while reporting in Darfur earlier this month, The veteran correspondent, 44, traveled to Sudan to report on the civil war that has sparked a massive humanitarian crisis, with more 26 million facing famine…
But just hours after arriving in North Darfur, Ward and her team were detained by a militia led by by a man who went by ‘the general,’ as she wrote for CNN, Ward, cameraman Scott McWhinnie and producer Brent Swails were inside a vehicle when they were surrounded by armed fighters who violently shouted at them to not film the scene, As Ward’s producer Brent Swails tried to defuse the situation, the general grabbed his rifle and fired off a round, apparently targeting a bird.
‘I was relieved that the gun wasn’t pointed at us but still disturbed by his erratic behavior,’ Ward wrote of the terrifying experience, Ward had been invited to the town of Tawila by the SLM-AW – a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement, which is a neutral party in the civil war, Tawila is just 32 miles from the frontline of the war, in the city of El Fasher, so it has become a refuge for those fleeing the carnage.
However, when she and her team reached the agreed meeting spot in the town of Aby Gamra, they were met instead by the rival militia and two trucks carrying rocket propelled grenades and machine guns, The team’s driver was taken away in chains to the town jail and the crew was interrogated, individually, for three hours in a ‘small, windowless room.’
After the questioning, Ward and her team were bundled into their vehicle and ordered to follow a convoy that was heading deeper into Darfur, As the general shot his weapon again as he shouted at the crew, Ward pleaded with him, saying, ‘I am a mother. I have three little boys, A security chief reported replied: ‘Don’t be frightened… We are human beings.’
