How many wars has he lived through?
Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, Sudan, Somalia… A long dozen. Ukraine, I come from there.
What have you seen?
I was a few meters from the pizzeria that a Russian missile blew up: the Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina and other people died there.
Death… very close.
I had lunch every day in that pizzeria in Kramatorsk, but that day I was different.
He was lucky.
The journalist needs luck. Or he will die.
And the young people who volunteer?
Without military preparation, 100% will die. With training, 50%.
Has Kramatorsk been the worst time?
I have been arrested, beaten, tortured, my house burned down in Afghanistan…
Uf.
And it was at the Spanish embassy in Kabul when the Islamic State blew up a car bomb in 2015. Nine dead.
Live to tell.
It’s my passion. And this square is to blame.
Plaça Sant Felip Neri, in Barcelona.
My grandfather took me there when I was four and I saw these impacts. They are from a bomb, the explosions killed 42 people, mostly children. Grandpa explained it to me. And he saw my interest. And over the years he told me all about his war: Huesca, Teruel, the Ebro…
Did those stories mark him so much?
I became obsessed with war. And I also wanted my war.
That’s not very prudent.
Being a soldier didn’t suit me, because it was undisciplined: I decided to be a war reporter.
And did he run to war?
And I lived in Afghanistan from 2008 to 2018. Until the police thought I was a Taliban spy and burned down my house and I had to flee.
Does it pay to live like this?
I have given my life to war reporting. I have given up partners, to have a house, car, everything… I have nothing.
Don’t they pay?
The working conditions of the freelance reporter are truly deplorable, if not illegal. But the fact is that I don’t know how to live any other way. So what can I do?
I do not know.
And when I come around and hear your complaints…they seem so ridiculous to me…
We complain about banalities, sure.
And in the end I end up feeling like a stranger here, I feel far from normal.
Humanity… what opinion does it deserve?
We are detestable, we are a virus, we are a plague on the planet.
Have you done a lot of crazy things?
For a photo or a story I have played everything for everything. This until the age of 40, today I am a little more careful.
But he continues to go to war.
Yes, and it costs me 500 euros to access the first line of fire: I pay them if I want the opportunity to take good photos and stories.
What’s the worst thing you’ve seen?
I saw a Romanian NATO commander use disabled children in Turkey as rag dolls to make a promotional video. I decided to stop collaborating with NATO since then.
How does he save his soul from so much fear?
I have treated myself several times for post-traumatic stress, with psychologists, for my own good. But my salvation is in Africa.
Africa?
In the most remote corners of the African continent, in the last sanctuaries of wild animals… I feel something very special.
describe it to me
I never feel so alive as I do there.
Because?
I forget the repulsive humanity. And wild animals and nature reconcile me to my dignified essence. Elephants, especially…
What inspires you?
With the elephants I feel closer to civilization than in the city. Seeing myself reflected in an elephant’s eye, I have seen their intelligence and depth: they have self-awareness, mourn their dead, pass on memories to their offspring…
He is moved.
Yes. It’s that here I feel alone and lost. There, comforted. I petted a rhinoceros…
And what did you hear?
That he was touching God. A primordial energy. I reconnect with an essence that we are already disconnected from.
What other animals fascinate him?
Lions, leopards, giraffes, chimpanzees, pangolins… They and we started in Africa. It feels good to be back there. I have nothing and I don’t make it to the end of the month, but there I feel that there is more to the world than my fears.
What is your biggest fear?
Lose the capacity for surprise. But in Africa I always get it back.
