- 2 weeks ago
Icons of Change International Awards 2025
Mike Thomson
International Affairs Correspondent | Author | Human Rights Advocate
BBC World Service – Over Three Decades of Global Reporting
War Correspondent of the Year (Prix Bayeux Calvados, 2008)
Journalist of the Year (One World Media Awards, 2008)
Journalist of the Year (Sony Radio Academy Awards, 2012)
Four-Time Amnesty International Media Award Winner (2008, 2009, 2010, 2014)
SDG Focus: Sustainable Development Goal 16 – Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
Changemaker for Truth, Human Rights, and Global Justice (United Kingdom)
---
Few journalists in modern history have navigated the intersection of conflict, humanity, and justice with the persistence and integrity of Mike Thomson. For more than three decades, he has stood at the world’s flashpoints—where history unfolds in real time—and brought home stories that would otherwise remain buried under the rubble of war, censorship, and silence.
As a senior International Affairs Correspondent for the BBC, Mike has reported from Syria’s besieged cities, Iraq’s battlefields, Afghanistan’s rugged terrains, North Korea’s closed borders, and Africa’s humanitarian crises. His fearless pursuit of truth has taken him into the very heart of danger, often undercover, revealing not only the brutality of conflict but also the quiet resilience of ordinary people. His work has amplified the cries of victims, survivors, and forgotten communities—turning local struggles into matters of global conscience.
Mike’s career is marked by landmark moments in journalism. He was among the earliest to sound the alarm on the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar in 2006, a voice that echoed long before the world recognized it as one of the gravest humanitarian catastrophes of our time. His coverage of Ethiopia’s drought in 2002–2003 mobilized nearly USD$800 million in international aid, proving that powerful reporting can shift policy, unlock resources, and literally save lives.
His investigative reporting has also peeled back the veneer of global commerce, exposing how multinational corporations were tied to exploitative labor practices in vulnerable regions. By holding power and profit accountable to morality, Mike reinforced the journalist’s role as both watchdog and moral compass in an increasingly complex global system.
Yet his work is not only about uncovering abuses. Mike is also a chronicler of hope. In *The Raqqa Diaries: Escape from Islamic State*, he gave readers a rare inside look at life under one of the most brutal regimes of the 21st century. In *Syria’s Secret Library*, he told the remarkable story of a community that built a library out of ruins, turning knowledge into resistance. These works stand as testaments to human resilience—and to Mike’s deep belief in the enduring power of stories to preserve dignity, even in war’s darkest hours.
Mike Thomson
International Affairs Correspondent | Author | Human Rights Advocate
BBC World Service – Over Three Decades of Global Reporting
War Correspondent of the Year (Prix Bayeux Calvados, 2008)
Journalist of the Year (One World Media Awards, 2008)
Journalist of the Year (Sony Radio Academy Awards, 2012)
Four-Time Amnesty International Media Award Winner (2008, 2009, 2010, 2014)
SDG Focus: Sustainable Development Goal 16 – Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
Changemaker for Truth, Human Rights, and Global Justice (United Kingdom)
---
Few journalists in modern history have navigated the intersection of conflict, humanity, and justice with the persistence and integrity of Mike Thomson. For more than three decades, he has stood at the world’s flashpoints—where history unfolds in real time—and brought home stories that would otherwise remain buried under the rubble of war, censorship, and silence.
As a senior International Affairs Correspondent for the BBC, Mike has reported from Syria’s besieged cities, Iraq’s battlefields, Afghanistan’s rugged terrains, North Korea’s closed borders, and Africa’s humanitarian crises. His fearless pursuit of truth has taken him into the very heart of danger, often undercover, revealing not only the brutality of conflict but also the quiet resilience of ordinary people. His work has amplified the cries of victims, survivors, and forgotten communities—turning local struggles into matters of global conscience.
Mike’s career is marked by landmark moments in journalism. He was among the earliest to sound the alarm on the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar in 2006, a voice that echoed long before the world recognized it as one of the gravest humanitarian catastrophes of our time. His coverage of Ethiopia’s drought in 2002–2003 mobilized nearly USD$800 million in international aid, proving that powerful reporting can shift policy, unlock resources, and literally save lives.
His investigative reporting has also peeled back the veneer of global commerce, exposing how multinational corporations were tied to exploitative labor practices in vulnerable regions. By holding power and profit accountable to morality, Mike reinforced the journalist’s role as both watchdog and moral compass in an increasingly complex global system.
Yet his work is not only about uncovering abuses. Mike is also a chronicler of hope. In *The Raqqa Diaries: Escape from Islamic State*, he gave readers a rare inside look at life under one of the most brutal regimes of the 21st century. In *Syria’s Secret Library*, he told the remarkable story of a community that built a library out of ruins, turning knowledge into resistance. These works stand as testaments to human resilience—and to Mike’s deep belief in the enduring power of stories to preserve dignity, even in war’s darkest hours.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hello everyone. It's good to talk to you at these important awards.
00:05Over the last three decades, my work as a foreign correspondent for the BBC
00:11took me to just about every corner of the globe,
00:15often to some of the most troubled places on Earth.
00:20Along the way, I've reported on everything from wars, earthquakes, floods and famines
00:25to military coups, revolutions and terrorist attacks.
00:30All of which has enabled me to witness some of the very worst sides of human nature.
00:37Along, I have to say, with some of the very best.
00:40As a journalist, I'm primarily an observer and can't always help bring change
00:46when witnessing or hearing of terrible suffering and violence.
00:51But what I can do is do my very best to draw attention to what I'm seeing
00:57and give voice to those whose trauma is not being heard.
01:03Women like Zawadi Mongane from eastern DR Congo, who I first met back in 2007.
01:12She had been abducted, along with nearly 50 other villagers, by a brutal Rwandan militia force.
01:18Most of the people were tortured and butchered.
01:24Zawadi's brother was among those murdered.
01:27He was killed in front of her after he refused the abductors' perverse demands that he rape her.
01:35After a few days, only Zawadi and one other woman were left alive,
01:41though both were abused as sex slaves for weeks afterwards.
01:45Fortunately, she managed to escape.
01:50I met Zawadi and her seven-year-old daughter, Rapunce,
01:54at a hospital for the victims of sexual violence in eastern Congo.
01:58She'd never told her story before.
02:02Nobody there wanted to hear it,
02:04because just about all the women had endured horrors of their own.
02:09Over a tearful two hours, Zawadi told her terrifying story.
02:16Yet her voice betrayed no signs of hate or bitterness,
02:21and when I asked her what she would like done to the brutal militiamen who'd abducted her if they were caught,
02:27she said they should just be deported.
02:30Don't put them to death, she insisted,
02:32adamant that there shouldn't be any more killing and brutality.
02:36Zawadi's resolute but gentle voice,
02:41despite all she'd been through,
02:43so inspired a well-known Norwegian jazz musician
02:47that he wrote and recorded this song, Why.
02:53It included some of her words from the interview in her native Swahili.
02:57Significantly,
02:59You are a man.
03:13You are a family.
04:15who were then facing eviction, poured in.
04:20Thankfully, she had, at last, truly been heard.
04:24I went back to Congo to see her repeatedly over the following years, and the change from a haunted, terrorised young mother to a woman who'd learned to live again was profound.
04:42I witnessed further proof that people around the world can care and relate to the plight of others thousands of miles away when I travelled to Ethiopia in 2002.
04:55The country was then in the grip of a terrible drought that was threatening to surpass even the one in the mid-1980s that's believed to have cost as many as a million lives.
05:07A common challenge when reporting such awful situations is that because the news is so grim, the misery so widespread, audiences may be tempted to switch off their TVs and radios.
05:22Many will think, what have all these horrors got to do with me?
05:27I've got problems of my own.
05:29I don't need to hear more from strangers I've never met thousands of miles away.
05:33But in the end, an eight-year-old boy called Theo Haji cut through all that to people across the world.
05:44I interviewed Theo while accompanying a UN emergency team sent into Ethiopia's famine-threatened countryside to find the worst-hit areas.
05:53I told the clearly desperate young Theo, who was then the same age as my own son, that within two to three days, UN staff would be back with food.
06:06What he told me in a BBC radio interview moved people across the globe.
06:13Sitting on a rusty can a few yards away, an eight-year-old boy is drawing shapes in the dust with a small stone.
06:20A fly settles just under his left eye, but Fayyoh Haji seems resigned to its presence, just like he is to the hunger that gnaws at his stomach.
06:32I know I'm going to die, and so are my brothers and sisters, because we are all so hungry.
06:39My brothers and sisters just stay in our home now.
06:43Do you really think you're going to die?
06:46Yes.
06:47What have your parents told you to make you feel better?
06:53They have told me that our cattle have died, our crops have failed, and they have nothing to give me.
07:00Don't you have any hope that food will arise?
07:04No. I would prefer to die as I'm keeping waiting for food. I prefer to die.
07:09That young child's words, saying he'd rather die than endure the gnawing, excruciating pains of hunger any longer, shamed the world into action.
07:22Tens of millions of dollars in aid was pledged by governments and individuals.
07:28This was no nameless official calling for help for a faraway land, but a young child who would rather die than carry on living in agony.
07:40Happily, as you can see from this photograph, young Theo and I were reunited the following year, when I went back to Ethiopia to find out if he had survived.
07:52Yet all of what I've said will count for nothing if people stop believing what journalists like me, as well as experts, officials and political leaders, tell them.
08:04Unfortunately, many people are starting to trust nothing they see or hear that fails to chime with their own outlook on the world.
08:13Many come to rely on popularist politicians or social media stars who say whatever it takes to win votes or followers, dismissing firm evidence to the contrary of what they say as fake news.
08:28But the real courage and sheer resilience I've seen among people facing challenges and hardships that many of us can hardly even imagine gives me hope that even in the world's darkest, most desolate places, positivity, kindness and love triumph over hate and brutality.
08:51All of which brings me to my final memory, the extraordinary people of starved, bombarded and besieged Derea during Syria's long civil war.
09:04I first came into contact with residents there in 2015, after reading about how a group of them had somehow created a secret underground library filled with books that they'd rescued from bombed and abandoned homes in the town, which lies on the doorstep of the Syrian capital Damascus.
09:26With the help of an Arabic-speaking colleague, I managed to make contact with one of the library's founders.
09:34He confirmed that this incredible story was true and told me how it came about.
09:41Given that the town was under siege, I obviously couldn't go there, but over the following two years, I managed to speak to him and others there via WhatsApp, whenever that is, they could get online.
09:56At that point, Derea, which was then controlled by rebel fighters, had been under siege by Syrian government forces for more than a year.
10:07By the time all this finished, by the way, they were under siege for four years.
10:12Nobody could get out, and little or no food and other supplies could get in.
10:17As a result, those who'd remained there after the siege took hold were close to starvation, with little more than a cup of watery soup to sustain them each day.
10:30And that was only part of their nightmare.
10:34Army snipers, hidden on the top floors of tower blocks that ringed the town, would shoot at anyone who dared to walk the streets.
10:41And every day, Syrian forces would shell Derea, while government helicopters dropped what were called barrel bombs on it.
10:49These were large, often wooden containers, packed with explosives, concrete and nails,
10:55which sent deadly shrapnel flying in all directions when they exploded.
11:00Here's a chilling audio diary, recorded and sent to me in 2016 by Abdul Basid, one of the extraordinary library's founder members.
11:13There is a plane over us right now.
11:18Just listening to this sound tears at my heart.
11:21Now it's dropped its barrel bomb.
11:41Rather than sit and wait to die, either from bombs, bullets or starvation,
11:54a group of young people there decided to spend their time rescuing books in destroyed buildings,
11:59after seeing them being scorched by the sun in summer and rained on in winter.
12:04All were then taken through the town's bomb-blit streets to a makeshift basement library,
12:11which lay beneath a wrecked and crumbling tower block.
12:16In the end, they collected more than 15,000 books,
12:22ranging from collections of Arabic poetry and textbooks on philosophy, maths and civil engineering,
12:29to the works of Shakespeare, Agatha Christie and Voltaire.
12:34All housed in a basement room, they'd carpeted and lined with comfortable chairs, sofas and tables.
12:43This subterranean literary refuge became a peaceful world of learning and hope,
12:50while just a metre above its ceiling, bloodshed and mayhem reigned.
12:55To give you some idea of what the secret library meant to those who created it,
13:02these are the words of a Syrian rebel fighter called Omar Abu Hamas,
13:08one of many of Dereya's rebel fighters,
13:11who took borrowed library books to the front line to read them during quieter spells.
13:17Books motivate us to keep going.
13:27We read how, in the past, everyone turned their backs on a particular nation,
13:31yet still, that nation made it.
13:34So we can be like that too.
13:36In fact, you can read everything in books,
13:39reading and educating yourself.
13:42They help us plan for life, for once Assad is gone.
13:47We want something better than Assad.
13:50We want to be a free nation.
13:52And hopefully, by reading, we can achieve this.
14:00Sadly, Omar was killed just a few days after saying those words.
14:05But his example and those of his friends of fostering hope for humanity
14:12during one of their country's darkest days
14:15has been a massive inspiration to me.
14:19Many others have been moved and inspired too,
14:22since I told the story in both a radio documentary and later a book.
14:27To have had the privilege of shining a spotlight
14:33on such extraordinary and courageous people,
14:37both in Syria and elsewhere around the world,
14:41has been a really humbling experience
14:43and made my job as a journalist feel so worthwhile.
14:49Thank you for listening.
14:50Thank you for listening.
Recommended
1:29
|
Up next
1:45:04
10:00
1:39:37
3:18
3:45
1:13
4:42
Be the first to comment