Memories of Mo Amin

He crisscrossed the African continent capturing historic, breathtaking, and impactful images through his camera lenses, a majority of which put Africa in the spotlight and in one instance, forced the world to stop for a moment and act.

Within the media fraternity, photo and video journalist Mohamed Amin was always one step ahead of the pack in covering major breaking news, and on November 23, 1996, he died at the prime of his trade aboard a hijacked plane off the coast of the Comoros islands that gripped the attention of the world and ended one chapter in the story of one of Africa’s greatest journalists. Twenty-six years later, NTV’s Duncan Khaemba looks back on the life and times of a journalism legend who was to many simply known as Mo, and whose works remain immortalized in picture and sound.

Saturday, November 23, 1996, holidaymakers in the Indian Ocean islands of Comoros capture an Ethiopian airline’s flight ET 961 Boeing 767 crashing into the sea. Unbeknown to them at the time, these would become some of the most memorable amateur images in the history of modern journalism; the last few moments of the man, who had himself, captured many world exclusives in his lifetime.

Flight ET 961 had lifted off from Bole International Airport, Addis Ababa Ethiopia for Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi Kenya. 163 passengers from 36 countries were on board. Three hijackers who had reportedly escaped were among them. The plane had a twelve-member crew making a total of 175 individuals on board.

The legendary photographer had left Nairobi on a Friday morning for Addis Ababa for a one-day business trip and since he was the one publishing the airline’s flight magazines was flying 1st class on that fateful Saturday.

As soon as the flight leveled up in the Ethiopian blue skies, the three hijackers sprang into action demanding to be flown to Australia. The pilot of the ill-fated flight Leul Abate lived to tell the tale. It was his third time being hijacked.

“I told them this flight is destined for Nairobi, we don’t have enough fuel to fly all the way to Australia, lets land and refill then we can proceed, they said No way,” said Leul Abate – pilot, flight et 961 in an interview with Camerapix crew.

Michael Odenya was among the 163 passengers on the ill-fated flight. He saw it all and was one of the only 52 survivors out of the 175 on board. Mohamed Amin was the only passenger who tried negotiating with the hijackers.

“At one point mo asked us to fight the hijackers since they were only three but nobody was brave. Mo had only hand remember. It was brave of him” said Michael Odenya – survivor, in an interview with Camerapix crew

The stand-off persisted. The pilot declined to fly the plane to Australia, hijackers refused to soften their position and after circling in the air for about four hours, the plane ran out of fuel and came tumbling into the blue ocean waters that afternoon. 123 passengers perished. Acclaimed photo and video journalist was among them. That was the end of a man who had an outstanding media career spanning over three decades. His camera lenses had been shut for good on Saturday, November 23, the year was 1996. Mo Amin was no more.

His son Salim says he was in Westlands when he was asked to go back home.

“The sad news was scanty, we are talking of 1996, a time when there was no internet, no mobile phones, there was very little communication.” Salim Amin- son

They were expecting him back at around lunchtime on Saturday.

“When I was at the gym my wife and then Farzan came to the gym and said we need to go home, there has been a plane crash”

Veteran photojournalist Abdul Azim who worked with Amin at his Camerapix company before switching to the associated press-AP says

“ My office called me saying, Azim do you know that your friend is dead? there was a plane crash. I was having tea, I started shaking because the day before, I had met him in the corridor and he told me he was going to Ethiopia and will be back almost immediately”

“When I got home, I started making calls NS went to the Reuters office and sat there the whole day into the night…” Azim says.

24 hours that followed seemed like a whole year for the family. Reuters news agency that was one of his clients chartered a flight from Wilson airport for the Comoros Islands that Sunday for its crew as well as Salim. It was a small plane that took about five and a half hours.

They landed and found a makeshift hospital that had been set up by French troops. A temporary morgue had been put up at the beach improvised from one of the meat storage facilities which had coolers to accommodate lots of bodies retrieved from the Indian Ocean. Family members arriving had the task of checking each body lined on the floor to identify their kin. It’s Salim who identified his father’s corpse.

From then on, the story of the legendary Mo that seemed to have ended began to unfold, this time in a different way.

The giant photo and video journalist was born in Nairobi’s Eastleigh estate in 1943 and his love for cameras began at the age of 11 when he bought himself a second-hand box brownie camera for forty shillings. Then dropped out of school to focus on photography after establishing his Camerapix Company which still runs to date. In 1960, many African countries started gaining independence and he filmed as the colonial curtain came down across Africa, including in Kenya where the union jack came down in December 1963.

His first world-exclusive images came in November 1965 when he stumbled on big news. It was a military training camp in Zanzibar. For a while, there had been rumors that the island was being used as a Soviet Union submarine base with reports of humongous military build-up which remained mere rumors until Mo’s camera lenses blew the cover.

Eastern Europeans were training local soldiers dressed in Cuban and East German uniforms, with Russian armored personnel carriers nearby. The following day the London times published his pictures as CBS and VisNews Tv stations aired the footage, leading to heated debates in the British Parliament and US senate over the undisputed and overwhelming evidence of Russia’s militant presence in Zanzibar. He became a marked man by soviet security men who communicated to their associates in East Africa and it was just a matter of time. Amin was a wanted man.

In 1966, he flew back to Zanzibar to cover a visit by then-Egyptian president Gamal Nasser when authorities pounced on him detaining him at the dreaded Kilimamigu Maximum security prison for 28 days where he faced the music. That arrest emboldened him more given the publicity it attracted and there was no looking back from then.

When Cabinet minister Tom Mboya was assassinated on the chilly Saturday of July 5, 1969, in Nairobi’s CBD, Amin covered the chilling news. He was the first to arrive at the scene, exclusively captured medics as they fought to save Mboya’s life boarding the same ambulance that rushed a mortally wounded politician to Nairobi hospital where doctors’ efforts’ to resuscitate him failed and was there when life deserted him.

Mboya’s assassination shook the country and Mohamed Amin’s footage and pictures were published all over the world, winning him the British television cameraman of the year award in 1969.

When Uganda’s tyrants came to power and some exited as unceremoniously as they came, the frontline photo and video journalist captured events as they unfolded.

In 1971 colonel Iddi Amin Dada toppled President Milton Obote. Uganda’s capital Kampala was in chaos, no flights were leaving or landing in Entebbe. Major world news agencies were stuck in Nairobi’s Wilson airport as the news was breaking.

Veteran Mo, quickly reached for his contact book and called Entebbe State House, and whoever received the call only grasped his name as Mohamed Amin and thought of him as colonel Amin’s relative, quickly handing the dictator the phone. The tyrant authorized his flight and within a few hours he landed at the airport and was received by Amin Dada himself and began filming another exclusive as the competition salivated licking their wounds in Nairobi as Mo’s exclusive pictures were plastered everywhere.

He enjoyed good ties throughout the despot’s reign of terror, he was there, to capture all that was there to be captured, photographed expatriates led by the British High Commissioner then carrying the giant Iddi Amin aloft in Kampala streets on the eve of the organization of African unity-OAU, then printed the images on Tshirts with a text reading “King of Africa, Conqueror of the British empire” which he distributed to delegates who attended the summit of African big boys. Veteran photojournalist Sam Ouma who worked at Camerapix from 1977, happened to cover Iddi Amin alongside Mo, says the dictator locked out all foreign news crews and only allowed Mo to cover him. “He said expatriates had to carry him because it was their turn to face the music, having colonized innocent Ugandans for many years” – Sam Ouma.

Even after his ouster in 1979, Mo was still able to track his namesake to Saudi Arabia interviewing him in exile for another exclusive that aired on Bbc a year later in 1980.

When Yoweri Kaguta Museveni was in the bush in the early 80s leading his national resistance movement to capture power, the one and only was there and covered the NRM rebels, exposing young children Museveni had roped into his guerrilla movement. An outfit that saw even young girls take arms supporting Museveni’s quest for power. The children were ruthlessly intimidating as they came, they were killed at will and only understood and executed one language; violence. The expose raised debate and as pressure continued pilling, Museveni summoned the Camerapix crew to his base to address the matter without blinking and without flinching he paraded some of the kids who were dressed in military fatigue before cameras stating that the kids he stays with.

Nonetheless, he remained put following Museveni‘s every move in the bush until when he eventually toppled President Milton Obote for a second time and captured power on 26th January 1986.

However, what became arguably the biggest work of the legendary scribe, came in 1984 when he traveled to Northern Ethiopia’s hunger-stricken Korem region and filled images that not only shamed but also awakened the world. Tens and tens of people were dying at an IDP camp where thousands had sought refuge from the ongoing civil war at the time in Ethiopia.

Children, women, and men were all dying as hunger pangs continued hammering their empty bowels. It was a mega humanitarian crisis that had remained covered in the dusty fields of Korem until Mo chartered a plane and landed in the area. Ethiopian ruler at the time Haile Marriamu Mengistu never wanted the information to get out until Amin landed.

They suffered from the scorching sun by day and biting cold by night. Hunger was the common denominator and the victims died in big numbers. In the UK, the shocking news aired on Bbc prime time news while in the US, it was on CNBC. It was a humanitarian crisis like no other. Then US President George Bush invited Mo to the white house to witness as he signed an executive order to address the crisis.

In the United Kingdom, lead singer Bob Geldof mobilized Britain’s pop stars to stage a concert and fundraise food aid for the hunger victims. They heeded the call with a mega concert at London’s Wembley stadium which was watched by an estimated 1b people, raising more than 100 million British pounds.

In the US, singer Harry Belafonte was moved by the London initiative and partnered with Geldoff to bring America’s superstars together under the banner USA for Africa and recorded a song written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie titled “We are the world”

Americans also gave in their numbers, from the government to individual citizens, and the response was an outpouring. Salvation for Ethiopia came thanks to their neighbor from Kenya who broke the heart-wrenching news. Humanity was felt across the board.

In 1991, Mohamed Amin the great was at it again. He was tipped off an impending ouster and quickly left for Addis Ababa…. together with his team, they captured the fall of Haile Marriam Mengistu as rebels from North Ethiopia began pouring into the capital effortlessly forcing soldiers to scamper for safety by putting their guns down and their uniforms melting into crowds. Amin was atop one of the tanks as rebels turned the capital and the palace upside down.

But, tragedy was always knocking at Mo’s door. On the 4th of June 1991, a tragic incident that would alter his life for well struck. Fleeing forces of the overthrown Mengistu set on fire their ammunition depot that was in Addis Ababa leading to massive and multiple explosions that turned skies in the capital red hot. Mo and associates were filming from their hotel balconies and when the deafening sounds died down, as expected, the news crews went for the aftermath. Unfortunately, he suffered a major accident, it was catastrophic.

As he was filming, another blast occurred that badly damaged his left hand from the wrist to the shoulder killing his soundman John Mathai on the spot.

With the Ethiopian capital already in a crisis, a wounded Mo was airlifted to Nairobi for treatment, but it was too late for his left arm which had to be amputated.

But, for him, it was never said die. After ten days he was back in his office figuring out how he would get back into the game. His tragic and nearly fatal accident saddened and pained many. He began shopping for help which saw a team of American doctors work on a bionic arm that would help the big man get back to his feet, a procedure that was carried out in Ohio, US, and after three months, he was back doing what he loved and did best. To him, he was down but not out.

The acclaimed journalist continued traversing the African continent and not even war-torn Somalia would deter him given that he only relied on one hand. Those who knew him say, nothing, and nobody could stand in his way whenever he smelt and saw newsworthy events. He was a brave go-getter.

It is now 26 years and his legacy lives on. His son Salim still uses the same table his late father used for many years, as he tries to step into the big shoes at Camerapix, the company founded by his father Mo Amin. His office bears anything and everything that reminds him and the world about his father including the bionic arm that was salvaged at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, the awards and accolades won, the para-phanalia, and the rich archive that has acres and acres of material he collected that is now undergoing curating.

From the young age of 22 years when he made international headlines by filming Russian training camps in Zanzibar, the giant Mo straddled the African continent like a colossus with world-beating exclusives to the prime age of 53 when he met his death, that fateful Saturday of November 1996 when his exit from the face of the earth was captured on camera and camera’s shutters silenced for good. He was laid to rest at the Kariokor Muslim cemetery, leaving memories of a world he served diligently and tough lessons for those left behind.