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Arwa Damon

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Arwa Damon
Damon in May 2012
Born (1977-09-19) September 19, 1977 (age 47)
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Alma materSkidmore College (BA)
OccupationJournalist
RelativesMuhsin al-Barazi (grandfather)
Azad Al-Barazi (cousin)

Arwa Damon (born September 19, 1977) is an American journalist who was most recently a senior international correspondent for CNN, based in Istanbul. From 2003, she covered the Middle East as a freelance journalist, before joining CNN in 2006. She is also president and founder of INARA,[1] a humanitarian organization that provides medical treatment to refugee children from Syria.

Biography

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Damon was born in Boston on September 19, 1977[2] to an American father and Syrian mother.[3] She spent her early childhood years in Wayland, Massachusetts.[4] Damon is the granddaughter of Muhsin al-Barazi, the former Prime Minister of Syria, who was executed in the August 1949 Syrian coup d'état.[5]

At the age of six, Damon and her family moved to Morocco, followed by Istanbul, Turkey three years later,[3] where her father was a teacher and middle school director at Robert College.[6]

Damon skipped sixth grade and graduated with honors from Robert College at the age of 16. She then spent a gap year with her aunt and uncle in Morocco, learning show jumping, before moving to the U.S. to attend Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.[5][7] She graduated with honors in 1999 with a major in French and a minor in international affairs.[8]

Before becoming a reporter, Damon sold bathrobes and towels for an on-line textile company.[2]

Damon is fluent in Arabic, French and Turkish.[7] She lives in Istanbul with her three pet cats.[3]

Journalism career

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CameraPlanet

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Damon decided to become a journalist after 9/11, and moved to Baghdad prior to the beginning of the Iraq War.[5][9] She began her career at CameraPlanet, a supplier of media content for television newscasts.[2] In 2004, she worked as a freelancer at CNN's Baghdad bureau, joining the network as a correspondent in 2006.[10]

CNN/CNN International

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Damon covered the Iraqi elections of January 2005, the constitutional referendum vote in October 2005, and the Iraqi election of December 2005. She also reported on the trials and executions of Saddam Hussein, Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar in January 2007.[2][7]

During the Syrian civil war, Damon travelled multiple times to Syria and to refugee camps for Syrians.[7] After the 2012 Benghazi attack, she was one of the first journalists to arrive at the scene; she recovered slain Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens' personal diary.[5]

In 2013, Damon followed an anti-poaching park ranger unit through Odzala National Park in the Republic of the Congo. The feature was called Arwa Damon Investigates: Ivory War.[11][7]

In April 2014, after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping, she travelled to West Africa and the islands of Lake Chad to follow the hunt for the terrorists.[7]

Damon covered the International military intervention against ISIL on numerous occasions, dating to the beginning of the conflict.[7]

Damon returned to Iraq in the second half of 2016 and covered the Battle of Mosul. Riding with a convoy consisting of press and Iraqi soldiers, she came under heavy fire by IS troops and was trapped. After 28 hours of entrenched fighting, reinforcements from the Iraqi military rescued them.[7]

Damon travelled to Thailand to cover the Tham Luang cave rescue.[7] In 2018, she accompanied a Greenpeace group to Antarctica and made a feature on it.[12]

In 2019, Damon travelled to Kathmandu in Nepal to report on a spike in fatalities amongst Mount Everest climbers.[13][14] That year, she traveled again with Greenpeace, this time to the Arctic. She reported about the significant loss of ice at the poles and their importance for the whole ecosystem of the earth.[15]

She announced her departure from CNN in June 2022 to focus on her humanitarian work.[3]

Charitable work

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INARA (the International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance) is a humanitarian aid, 501(c)(3), non-profit organization that was co-founded by Arwa Damon in 2015 in Beirut, Lebanon. INARA provides medical services for children who have been wounded in war zones. It also provides rehabilitation treatment for its beneficiaries.[16]

The organization focuses on refugee children from Syria.[17][18][19]

Awards and honors

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Damon won an Investigative Reporters and Editors' IRE Award for her reporting of the Consulate attack in Benghazi, along with fellow photojournalist Sarmad Qaseera.[20][10]

Damon was part of the CNN team who won the 2012 Emmy Award for Outstanding Live Coverage of a Current News Story – Long Form (Revolution in Egypt: President Mubarak Steps Down).[21] In 2014, she was awarded the Courage in Journalism Award given by the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF).[22]

Controversy

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Damon and CNN were sued by two employees of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad claiming that on July 19, 2014, an intoxicated Damon bit them. Damon acknowledged the incident and apologized.[23][24]

References

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  1. ^ "Our Board". INARA. Archived from the original on October 21, 2020. Retrieved November 3, 2016.
  2. ^ a b c d Steigrad, Alexandra (November 10, 2017). "Media People: CNN's Arwa Damon on War Reporting, Tattoos and Close Calls". Women's Wear Daily. Archived from the original on June 26, 2024. Retrieved June 28, 2024.
  3. ^ a b c d Littman, Shany (June 21, 2024). "As a CNN War Reporter, Arwa Damon Thought She Had Seen Everything. Then She Went to Gaza". Haaretz. Archived from the original on June 24, 2024. Retrieved June 28, 2024.
  4. ^ Ariens, Chris (March 7, 2017). "An Iraqi Family Named Their Newborn After CNN's Arwa Damon". AdWeek. Archived from the original on October 3, 2023. Retrieved June 28, 2024.
  5. ^ a b c d Mitchell, Heidi (November 19, 2012). "Facing the Truth: CNN's Arwa Damon". Vogue. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Retrieved June 30, 2014.
  6. ^ "Special dinner held recognizing Dr. George H. Damon, Jr., retiring head of the American Community School at Beirut". American Community School, Beirut; News Post. July 15, 2013. Archived from the original on May 7, 2019. Retrieved July 1, 2014.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Official biography at CNN". CNN. Archived from the original on November 1, 2018. Retrieved August 14, 2018.
  8. ^ "Arwa Damon '99". Skidmore College. Archived from the original on June 21, 2021.
  9. ^ Gold, Hadas (March 10, 2014). "Getting There: CNN's Arwa Damon". Politico. Archived from the original on July 13, 2014. Retrieved June 30, 2014.
  10. ^ a b "CNN's Arwa Damon wins 2014 Courage in Journalism Award". CNN. May 16, 2014. Archived from the original on September 22, 2018. Retrieved June 28, 2024.
  11. ^ Arwa Damon (January 1, 2014). "Arwa Damon Investigates: Ivory War". CNN. Archived from the original on December 14, 2021. Retrieved August 13, 2018.
  12. ^ Damon, Arwa (August 14, 2018). "How the Antarctic is helping combat climate change". CNN. Archived from the original on August 23, 2018. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
  13. ^ Arwa Damon (May 28, 2019). "Nepal's government considers permit restrictions after rash of Everest deaths". www.cnn.com. Archived from the original on June 2, 2019. Retrieved June 2, 2019.
  14. ^ Arwa Damon (May 28, 2019). "Climber: Everest trek was 'race for life'". www.cnn.com. Archived from the original on June 2, 2019. Retrieved June 2, 2019.
  15. ^ Damon, Arwa (June 8, 2019). "Arctic melt: Threat beneath the ice". CNN. Archived from the original on June 10, 2019. Retrieved June 10, 2019.
  16. ^ "INARA – Who we are". www.inara.org. Archived from the original on August 14, 2018. Retrieved August 17, 2018.
  17. ^ Kathryn McQuade (July 26, 2018). "Grant awarded to The International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance (INARA)". mcquadefoundation.org. Archived from the original on August 22, 2021. Retrieved September 17, 2018.
  18. ^ "Inara Awarded Over $500,000 By Unicef". www.daleel-madani.org. March 29, 2017. Archived from the original on September 17, 2018. Retrieved September 17, 2018.
  19. ^ TK Maloy (June 20, 2017). "INARA: Helping to bridge the gap in medical services for refugee children". Annahar. AN-NAHAR. Archived from the original on September 17, 2018. Retrieved September 17, 2018.
  20. ^ "2012 IRE Award winners". Investigative Reporters and Editors. Archived from the original on October 10, 2017. Retrieved June 30, 2014.
  21. ^ "Winners of The 33rd Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards". The Emmy Awards. Archived from the original on October 4, 2012. Retrieved June 30, 2014.
  22. ^ "Arwa Damon: 2014 Courage in Journalism Award". IWMF. Archived from the original on July 7, 2014. Retrieved June 30, 2014.
  23. ^ Goldstein, Barbara Ross, Sasha (August 4, 2014). "CNN correspondent Arwa Damon apologizes after lawsuit claimed she bit 2 medics in drunken rage at U.S. Embassy in Baghdad". nydailynews.com. Archived from the original on May 15, 2021. Retrieved September 14, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  24. ^ "CNN Sued Over Correspondent Who Bit EMTs in Drunken Rage". TMZ. August 4, 2014. Archived from the original on January 18, 2021. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
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