"I am one of those journalists who cry while writing a story" "

Covering conflict is dangerous, but it becomes even more hazardous when the conflict zone happens to be your motherland. A personal account

- Toufiq Rashid

Warning: This article includes a suicide note and has detailed accounts of the psychological impact of reporting on conflict and sufferingI'm really, really sorry.

The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist. ...depressed... without phone... money for rent ... money for child support... money for debts ... money!!!... I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain... of starving—or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners ... I have gone to join Ken if I am that lucky. —Kevin Carter

THIS was how the suicide note of Pulitzer Prizewinning photojournalist Kevin Carter read. Carter died by suicide in 1994, less than four months after receiving the award for his photograph of a famine-stricken child in Sudan. The iconic picture captured a young child, famished and weak, almost unable to walk and stalked by a vulture. The photographer and his work became both famous and controversial. Carter was called out for not helping the child. He maintained that he had chased away the vulture and that the child had resumed her trek to the aid centre nearby. Still, it seems there was something he was unable to live with.

Carter’s death is an extreme case; maybe many would not be able to relate. But it is surely a cry for attention to the psychological toll—bearing witness to death, suffering, and even hopelessness—it takes on conflict journalists.

I keep thinking what Carter’s dilemma could have been; maybe it was the guilt of not doing enough for the child while dealing with the trauma of his experiences. That may be a dilemma for many of us who have covered conflicts and experienced its aftereffects. A sense of helplessness, coupled with the guilt that chronicling human suffering is your means to earn a living.