Watch the two-part documentary Discovering Yusuf on
Dateline and World Information groups had been the 2 SBS winners on the 69th Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism in Sydney, with the annual awards spanning 30 classes.
Colin Cosier, Agnes Teek and the Dateline crew had been awarded the Walkley award within the All Media: Worldwide Journalism class, for the
Yusuf Zahab was a Sydney schoolboy who was taken to dwell in Syria beneath the self-proclaimed Islamic State group (IS) when he was 12. He has grow to be emblematic of a era of boys, adrift within the prisons of northeast Syria,
In 2014, the IS group joined the insurrection in opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that had began in 2011 and captured giant areas of territory within the nation.
Yusuf Zahab as a boy. Supply: Equipped
It attracted tens of 1000’s of overseas fighters, together with greater than 200 from Australia.
Because the US-backed Kurdish forces captured the final of the IS-group-held territory in Syria, 15-year-old Yusuf was separated from his mom and detained with out cost in a males’s jail alongside former IS group fighters.
Yusuf has been imprisoned ever since, whereas his mom, Aminah, stays in Syria’s al-Roj detention camp.
Yusuf says for the primary 18 months he was imprisoned as an unaccompanied minor in squalid situations alongside grownup males who had been suspected IS group fighters.
Then in January 2022, aged 17, he was injured within the head and arm throughout an tried breakout by IS group fighters attacking his jail within the metropolis of al-Hasakah.
The Syrian Democratic Forces mentioned over 500 individuals had been killed within the 10-day battle for the jail.
Yusuf wasboth in or simply after the assault.
It wasn’t tillin Syria that his survival may very well be confirmed. The crew had been the primary Australians he had made contact with since 2019.
The Walkley judges praised Dateline’s reporting.
“Colin Cosier and the Dateline crew ship a shocking instance of public service journalism performed throughout worldwide borders with this investigation into Australian households detained in Syria,” they wrote.
“Exposing a authorities inaction and incompetence, Cosier discovers a younger man beforehand thought lifeless and informs his overjoyed mom on this deeply shifting and riveting tv documentary”.
October 7 reporting
Additionally on Tuesday evening, SBS’ chief worldwide correspondent Ben Lewis gained the Walkley award for Tv/Video Information Reporting for the October 7 assaults.
with Cosier for his or her compelling protection of Ukraine: One Yr On which included theto assist defend the nation.
Lewis’ protection of Hamas’ October 7 assaults and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of Gaza included a rare interview with an Australian man, Anthony,
Anthony, alongside together with his Israeli-Australian spouse and their three youngsters aged beneath 4 lived in Kibbutz Be-eri, a farming neighborhood in southern Israel close to the Gaza Strip border — and one the place 110 our bodies had been discovered after Hamas
Lewis additionally, the place at the very least 260 individuals had been killed by Hamas militants in a shock assault.
Whereas SBS was visiting the positioning, an Israel Protection Forces (IDF) soldier fired warning photographs close to a Palestinian man who was suspected of carrying a weapon — highlighting the volatility of the scenario days after the bloodbath.
The Walkley judges mentioned Lewis’ reporting from Israel was “a wonderful instance of TV information reporting”.
“He obtained unique materials, labored beneath stress in harmful areas, and stored a balanced view and calm tone to ship sincere accounts”, they mentioned.
“His shifting interview with an Australian survivor of the kibbutz assaults, and his reporting from the rave web site, had been standout moments.”
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