Dan Eldon

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Daniel Robert Eldon (born 18 September 1970 in Hampstead, England - died 12 July 1993 in Mogadishu, Somalia) was an English photojournalist. He was working for Reuters as a freelance photographer when he was dispatched to the site of an attack, led by United States forces, on what was believed to be where Mohammed Farah Aidid's Habar Gedir clan were meeting to plot against U.S and U.N. forces.

In the aftermath of the assault, Eldon and three colleagues were filming the scene and accosted by an angry mob; while Eldon's life was cut short during this event, he left behind a series of journals.

1 Background
2 Film adaptation
3 External links
4 References
5 Books

[edit] Background

Dan Eldon was born in London on 18 September 1970. When he was seven years old, Eldon and his three-year-old sister Amy moved to Nairobi, Kenya with their parents, Kathy and Mike Eldon.

In Kenya, Eldon attended a British school, but after a brief time there, he convinced his parents to transfer him to the International School of Kenya, attended by students representing 46 nationalities.

In 1982, Eldon narrowly missed being caught up in the coup in Kenya, but he was around to experience the aftermath of that political upheaval. Early on, he joined his journalist mother, Kathy Eldon, on her assignments, and soon was taking pictures, which were used in the local newspapers.

He started helping others from a young age. When he was 14, he started a fund-raising campaign for open-heart surgery to save the life of Atieno, a young Kenyan girl. Together with his sister and friends, he raised $5,000 but due to neglect by the hospital Atieno died.^{[citation needed]}

When Eldon was around 15, he started to create journals: fat, bulging books filled with collages, photographs and whimsical drawings. He often used satire and cartoons to comment on what he saw around him, but kept the journals as very personal statements, which he shared with only a few people.

He graduated from the International School of Kenya in 1988, winning the International Relations and Community Service awards, as well as being voted most outstanding student by his classmates. He addressed his class, emphasizing in importance of crossing cultural barriers and caring for others.^{[citation needed]}

Throughout his life, Eldon travelled extensively, and had visited 46 countries by the time of his death. In addition, he studied seven languages in school and out of it.

In the autumn of 1988, Eldon Started his “year off” before going to college. It was, as he described, really a “year on” and for him, felt more challenging than going straight into college. He left his home in Kenya and travelled to New York City, where he had been offered a job at Mademoiselle Magazine.

In January, he moved to a warmer climate, and enrolled in Pasadena Community College in California. That summer, he and a friend Eldon's Land Rover across five African countries.^{[citation needed]}

Armed with the information he had obtained during his trip, Eldon, who had transferred to UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles), set up a charity, which he named Student Transport Aid. He attracted the interest of local television stations and newspapers, and together with 15 friends, raised $25,000 for their venture. The friends, representing six countries, met in Nairobi and travelled thousands of miles together in three vehicles to their destination, a refugee camp in Malawi. There, they donated one of their vehicles to the Save the Children Fund, as well as money for three wells, and blankets for a children’s hospital.

Eldon returned to UCLA in the autumn of 1990 and began to plan another adventure, which necessitated a move to London after Christmas. He attended Richmond College and organized the purchase of yet another Land Rover, which he equipped for a trip to Morocco that summer. His scheme was to buy bracelets and belts to sell in America for Student Transport Aid. Attacked by Moroccan thieves and delayed by a very sick Land Rover, he spent a fitful summer in Marrakesh, before arriving home just in time to ship $5,000 worth of goods to America, which he sold on the beaches of Southern California.

In 1991, he returned to UCLA for one semester, all the time planning his next trip, which was to be across the Sahara. Early in 1992, he moved to Mt. Vernon, Iowa, to attend classes at Cornell College.

In April of that year, Eldon flew to Kenya, where he worked as a third assistant director on a feature film, Lost in Africa. As the most junior person on the production, he was up at 5:00 a.m., and was the last in bed.^{[citation needed]}

During the summer of 1992, the famine in Somalia was raging. He flew from Kenya from the refugee camps. The international news agency, Reuters, spotted his work, and by Christmas, he was working for the company, shooting the increasingly desperate situation. He followed the story closely and was present at the U.S. Marine landing, where a barrage of international photographers and journalists were waiting for the American soldiers as they crept, faces blackened, off their landing craft in Mogadishu.

Throughout the spring of 1993, Eldon stayed in Mogadishu. The situation worsened, and the death of Pakistani peace keepers turned the conflict into an international incident. During this time, his pictures were featured in newspapers and magazines around the world. On 12 June 1993 his photo made a double-page spread in Newsweek magazine, as well as the covers of newspapers everywhere.

In April 1993, he published his first book, Somalia, a collection of photographs and collages which sold rapidly to aid workers and soldiers posted to the country considered by most to be more dangerous than Bosnia.

The violence and horror of the situation was extremely hard on Eldon. Although he had “had enough” by late June 1993, he agreed to stay on to cover the unfolding events. On 12 July 1993, he and three of his colleagues raced across Mogadishu to cover the bombing of what was thought to be General Aideed’s headquarters. In the ensuing confusion, all four young men were beaten, clubbed and stoned to death by an angry mob furious about the death of over 50 at the hands of U.S. and U.N. soldiers.^{[citation needed]}

The journalists who died that day were Hos Maina, Anthony Macharia, Hansi Krauss, and Dan Eldon.

[edit] Film adaptation

It was announced in the New York Times on 28 December 2007 that Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe will portray Eldon in an upcoming, yet to be filmed biopic entitled Journey.^[1] Eldon's mother, Kathy, personally chose Radcliffe, noting Radcliffe's "puckishness, sense of humour and energy" as similar to her son's.^[2]Bronwen Hughes will direct, and filming of the screenplay (written by Jan Sardi) will take place in Kenya.^[3]