Nima Elbagir

Nima Elbagir

Nima Elbagir (Born 1978) is an award-winning international television correspondent.

Elbagir was nominated for three awards in her first year of television reporting.[citation needed] In February 2011,she joined CNN as a London-based international correspondent.[1] In 2008, she picked up two Foreign Press Association Awards - TV News Story of the Year and Broadcast Journalist of the Year (winner of winners).[2] She had been nominated for other awards including the Amnesty Award for Human Rights Journalism and the One World Broadcast Awards.[3] In 2008, she was shortlisted for Young Journalist of the Year at the Royal Television Society Awards.[citation needed] As early as 2006, she was considered to be a rising reporting talent [4]

Early years

Elbagir was born in Sudan, came to Britain at the age of three, went back to Sudan at the age of eight, came to Britain again at 14 and returned to Sudan once more at 22.[citation needed] She was educated in Sudan and England. She has a BSc in Philosophy from The London School of Economics. She is fluent in Arabic and English.[3]

Career

Elbagir began her journalism career with Reuters in December 2002 reporting for them from Sudan, covering the simmering conflict in the country's Darfur region. She moved into broadcast journalism in 2005 joining the launch of More4 News where her exclusives included exposing rape allegations against the African Union in Darfur,[citation needed] getting the first interview with the Aegis security company whistleblower on the Iraq 'Trophy Videos'[citation needed], interviewing Jacob Zuma in the run-up to his recent rape trial and being the only Western journalist reporting from Mogadishu during the US bombing of Somalia in January 2007 [5]

In her first documentary with Unreported World "Meet the Janjaweed" she gained unprecedented access to Mohammed Hamdan Dogolo, aka "Hemeti", one of the main Arab Janjaweed Commanders at the heart of the fighting in Darfur.[citation needed] Elbagir and her director Andrew Carter filmed the fighters' Sudanese Army ID cards and Chinese manufactured weaponry - broadcasting the first evidence of the Sudanese government's direct involvement with the Janjaweed and the role China's arms sales to Darfur are playing in the conflict.[citation needed]

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