Mohamed Amin

Amin was born on 29 August 1943 in Eastleigh, Nairobi, to a family of Punjab descent. He developed an interest in photography at school.Episode One, Mo & Me

He founded the Camerapix company in 1963 in Dar es Salaam and moved the company to Nairobi three years later. During the 1970s, he became one of the most relied-upon African news photographers, reporting on wars and coups all through the continent, and his pictures were often used by Western news media. Amin's most influential moment came when his filming, along with Michael Buerk's reporting of the 1984 Ethiopian famine brought international attention to the crisis and eventually helped start the charity wave that resulted in Live Aid concerts.{{cite web |last=Musingzi |first=Bamuturaki |title=Mo Amin's life collection of photography shared online |work=The East African |date=30 October 2020 |url=https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/magazine/mo-amin-s-life-collection-of-photograhy-shared-online-3601610 |access-date=22 March 2022 }}

Apart from Ethiopian famine, he contributed exclusive photos of the fall of Idi Amin and of Mengistu Haile Mariam, and was author of numerous books, including Journey Through Pakistan, Pilgrimage to Mecca, and covered various themes like East African Wildlife and the Uganda Railway. Amin also published issues of Selamta, the Ethiopian Airlines in-flight magazine.Episode Seven, Mo & Me: {{YouTube|9XLbaOfqM6I|Part 1}}, {{YouTube|N6m-d2GWY1M|Part 2}}{{Cite web |last=NGULI |first=PETER NGANGI |title=How Mohamed Amin's lens healed the world |url=https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/counties/article/2000092683/how-mohamed-amins-lens-healed-the-world |access-date=2022-03-22 |website=The Standard |language=en}}

Amin was not only active in Africa, but also in the Middle East. He covered the Palestinian Black September uprising to seize control of Jordan in September 1970. He was able to move among the Palestinian forces where Western journalists could not.{{Cite web|title=Mohamed Amin: The Kenyan who moved the world|url=https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/mohamed-amin-kenyan-moved-world-180511092019528.html|last=Mitchell|first=Charlotte|website=aljazeera.com|access-date=2020-05-25}}

In 1991, Amin lost his left arm during an ammunition dump explosion in Ethiopia during the Ethiopian Civil War."[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9906E7DC103DF935A15752C1A960958260 Mohamed Amin, 53, Camera Eye During the Famine in Ethiopia]." The New York Times. November 26, 1996.

{{Main|Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961}}

Amin boarded Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 on 23 November 1996, with 61-year-old Briton Brian Tetley, a colleague who wrote the text for Amin's photography books, to travel to Nairobi after a business trip to Ethiopia. Hijackers stormed the cockpit of ET-AIZ, the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing B767-260ER used for the flight, and forced the pilot, Leul Abate, to fly east over the Indian Ocean to Australia. Amin attempted to rally the passengers to attack the hijackers and confronted the hijackers, trying to stop the scenario. ET-AIZ ran out of fuel and Abate ditched the aircraft off the coast of the Comoros Islands. ET-AIZ broke into pieces, and as Amin was standing, his body hit the airplane wall causing his death. He was 53."Ocean Landing" or "African Hijack," Mayday Tetley also did not survive the crash."[https://web.archive.org/web/20071225182452/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,985682,00.html Milestones]." Time. Monday 9 December 1996. Retrieved on 15 February 2010.

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In June 2006, Mo and Me, an Al Jazeera documentary film about Amin was premiered. It won Best International Documentary at the Los Angeles International Film Festival. Al Jazeera and Camerapix funded the film. Amin's son, Salim Amin, runs the Camerapix company as of 2008. Mo Amin is the inspiration for the A24 news channel, a proposed independent pan-African 24-hour 'African voice for Africa' which commenced broadcasting from Nairobi on 19 September 2008.

Mohamed Amin worked with numerous journalists and writers, including Tahir Shah and Colin Blane, as well as Michael Buerk.{{Cite news|last=Lacey|first=Marc|date=2006-05-11|title=Honoring a Father, Through a Lens and a Love of Africa|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/11/world/africa/11kenya.html|access-date=2020-05-25|issn=0362-4331}}

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• {{cite book |last1=Smith |first1=Bob |title=The Man Who Moved the World: The Life & Work of Mohamed Amin |date=1998 |publisher=Camerapix Publishers International |location=Nairobi |isbn=1874041997}}

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{{Portal|Kenya|Biography|Africa|Journalism}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060411015240/http://www.moforce.com/ Mohamed Amin Foundation]
• "[http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,985682,00.html Milestones] on December 9, 1996 of Time - Announcement of deaths of Mohamed Amin and Brian Tetley
• [http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0702/24/i_if.01.html INSIDE AFRICA: At the Movies]." ([https://archive.today/20140102001957/http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0702/24/i_if.01.html Archive]) CNN. February 24, 2007. -- interview transcripts, discussing Mohamed Amin and Mo & Me
• [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL86AC4297BAE6BBFB Mo & Me] - Al Jazeera
• {{IMDb name|2350919}}

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Category:1943 births

Category:1996 deaths

Category:Kenyan photojournalists

Category:Ethiopian Airlines

Category:Kenyan amputees

Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire

Category:Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1996

Category:Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in the Comoros

Category:Mass media people from Nairobi

Category:20th-century journalists

Category:Kenyan people of Indian descent