Open Eye – The Missing

I am pouring myself and the photographer Dalia Khamissy a large whiskey (thanks Val for the Chrimbo Jamesons). This one we have earned.

Tonight I finished mixing a radio documentary for the BBC about the estimated 17000 people who were kidnapped during the Lebanese civil war, and never seen again. If any of you listen to the BBC World Service then you may have started to hear it already trailed on the station.

The documentary was Dalia’s idea, and is brilliantly presented by her. Its the first of two programmes, under the title OPEN EYE, presented by photographers with accompanying photofilms on the BBC website (the second is a Joseph Rodriguez special from Malmo, Sweden)

Over the next couple of weeks before it’s broadcast (and podcast), and the photofilm goes up on the BBC website, I’ll start putting up some of Dalia’s photos on the blog. They were shot on film. Not bad for a ‘local’ photographer, hey.

(C) Dalia Khamissy

Imm Ahmed holds the portrait of her son Ahmed al Sharkawi as she lies on one of the beds inside the tent of the missing in downtown Beirut. Ahmed was kidnapped in 1986.