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Tim Hetherington & Chris Hondros in Liberia

Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros’s powerful photographs played an important role in moving the world to action and ultimately bringing the Second Liberian Civil War (1999-2003) to an end. A selection of their work is on display at the Bronx Documentary Center in an exhibition called War and Peace in Liberia: Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros.

Trapped with Liberian dictator Charles Taylor’s forces in Monrovia in the summer of 2003, Hondros braved artillery and rocket fire to send frontline pictures of women and children being killed by the hundreds. His photos ran on front pages around the world and provoked outrage at a brutal war whose victims were almost entirely non-combatants.

Tim Hetherington, embedded with the LURD rebels in the same period, documented the rebels shelling civilians. Taylor considered Hetherington’s photographs a threat and sent assassination squads to kill him. Hetherington barely escaped, only to return and live in Liberia following the conflict.

The photos in this exhibition, some never before shown, are a tribute to these journalists, and to the Liberian civilians who demanded an end to the violence.

In 2011, Hetherington and Hondros, were killed by artillery in Misurata, Libya.

War and Peace in Liberia: Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros
Bronx Documentary Center
October 26-December 16, 2018
Opening Reception October 26 from 6-9 pm with remarks by Amina J. Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Related Articles
Tim Hetherington Retrospective
Chris Hondros’s Testament
Long Stories Told: Daniel Castro Garcia on Learning from Tim Hetherington (for PDN subscribers; login required)

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