Jan 15, Part 2: Le Charnier

By Nico — January 16, 2010 | 2 comments

** WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGERY

Le Charnier, Haiti - On our walk we reached the General Hospital. There was beds everywhere outside. This started to get real hard as you see children suffer on the beds. I find it hard to just take photos of people suffering – it’s not anonymous like with bodies and body parts.

As we walked to the side we got a shock: there were about 500 or 1000 bodies, I don’t know, rotting in the sun. The morgue is full.


I started filming as if it would protect me from this sight (and that’s what I’m supposed to do). And somehow, it did. The same happened to Talia, the photojournalist. She only realized what she photographed after downloading the pics from the camera.

The smell of death really penetrates you, it comes inside of you, you taste it. When my shoes started to stick in the dried blood I had it, and walked away. Stanley was very shaken and felt the urge to find is family; right now, this minute.As we walked, journalists were photographing a dad holding his kid. The kid had a piece of wood 2 inches wide poked through is arm. Where do you stop? Where do I want to stop?

Tony (Nadine’s cameraman) told me about his shoot today: a dad brought his hurt kid on a sheet of plywood. Tony was crying behind his camera as he filmed the doctor stitching the kid’s head. The child screams could be heard throughout the camp; the doctor had no anesthetic: “we feel the same as any other person emotionally, but it is our job to show the truth and not be censored”.

Make sense? what would you do?

Tags: Bodies Featured Nicolas Jolliet Web Video