Photo Credit:
Anja Niedringhaus
 
Photo Caption:
An Afghan man jumps from a diving board into a swimming pool on a hill overlooking Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, May 17, 2013. The swimming pool built by the Soviets more then 30 years ago has rarely been used, caught instead, in the middle of decades of war. 
 
Note on Photographer:
“Anja Niedringhaus came into my life a decade ago by way of my husband, Kevin, who had known her since the early 1990s when they were both photographers covering the fall of the former Yugoslavia,” wrote Janis Mackey Frayer in her tribute. 

Pulitzer Prize-winning AP photographer Anja Niedringhaus was killed by an Afghan soldier on April 4, 2014, while she was covering the run-up to the presidential elections. She was fatally shot sitting in a car with her colleague, Kathy Gannon. Gannon was shot six times but survived and continues to report for the AP. 

Friends and colleagues still remember Anja’s spirit, her raucous laugh, her courage and her warmth. “In her coverage of conflict Anja was able to find moments of dignity in places with little of it. She was fearless in a way but still got scared and was gutsy enough to admit it,” Janis wrote

The circle of war correspondents is tightly knit. Where there is a conflict, you’re likely to see the same faces. It is not the violence that draws most of them to war but duty. They see the futility of war, the devastation it causes. They are driven to share the lives of people forced to endure the brutality. They look out for each other.

So it wasn’t surprising when Janis met Anja for the last time less than a month before she was killed. Anja was returning from Kandahar and wanted to get together when she got to Kabul. Janis was on assignment in Kabul for CTV. 

“Anja made soup and sausage and we all talked and laughed for hours … I showed her the latest photos of our son. She watched videos of his bath time, messy meals and his first tooth and she put her hand to my cheek and said, ‘Well done, darling, well done.’

The next day I made a quick stop to see her on my way to the airport to leave Kabul. We hugged on the stairs of the AP house and hugged again and when I kissed my friend goodbye she said, ‘I am missing you already’.

Two and a half weeks later Anja was gone,” she wrote.

We will continue to remember Anja. We will honour her commitment to bringing us stories — human stories, human faces, grief, happiness, hope; and most importantly reminding us of the transience of human life.