Şerif Turgut is a Turkish journalist and the first woman war correspondent of Turkey, best known for her coverage during the Bosnian War. Şerif Turgut received her master's degree in international politics from

George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Chartered in 1821 by the United States Congress, GWU is the largest Higher educat ...

, USA.

Early career

She decided to be a war correspondent when she saw the photographs from the

Omarska camp The Omarska camp was a concentration camp run by Bosnian Serb forces in the mining town of Omarska, near Prijedor in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, set up for Bosniak and Croat men and women during the Prijedor massacre. Functioning in the fir ...

, a death camp in

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...

set up and run by the

Army of Republika Srpska The Army of Republika Srpska ( sr, Војска Републике Српске/Vojska Republike Srpske; ВРС/VRS), commonly referred to in English as the Bosnian Serb Army, was the military of Republika Srpska (RS), the self-proclaimed Serb ...

in the first months of Bosnian War. She went to Bosnia on her own as a freelance journalist. Intended in the beginning to stay ten days only, she remained in Bosnia for almost five years when her life changed after she witnessed the horror there.

Bosnian War coverage

She reported for the Turkish television channel ATV from the Bosnian War, at which more than hundred thousand people were killed between 1992 and 1995. Turgut went on to cover the

Kosovo War The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that started 28 February 1998 and lasted until 11 June 1999. It was fought by the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (i.e. Serbia and Montenegro), which controlled Kosovo before the wa ...

Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror , image ...

and many other conflicts including the Algerian Civil War,

Western Sahara War The Western Sahara War ( ar, حرب الصحراء الغربية, french: Guerre du Sahara occidental, es, Guerra del Sahara Occidental) was an armed struggle between the Sahrawi indigenous Polisario Front and Morocco from 1975 to 1991 (an ...

and

Second Chechen War The Second Chechen War (russian: Втора́я чече́нская война́, ) took place in Chechnya and the border regions of the North Caucasus between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, from August 1999 ...

. During the Kosovo War, she also helped immigrants, who fled their home to settle in Turkey, by giving information about their relatives living still in Kosovo.

UN

She served more than three years as the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

Head of Public Information Office for Central Liberia. During this time, she was involved in creation and management of information dissemination mechanisms in the fields such as

demilitarization Demilitarisation or demilitarization may mean the reduction of state armed forces; it is the opposite of militarisation in many respects. For instance, the demilitarisation of Northern Ireland entailed the reduction of British security and military ...

social integration Social integration is the process during which newcomers or minorities are incorporated into the social structure of the host society. Social integration, together with economic integration and identity integration, are three main dimensions o ...

political rehabilitation Political rehabilitation is the process by which a disgraced member of a political party or a government is restored to public respectability and thus political acceptability. The term is usually applied to leaders or other prominent individuals ...

, elections and post conflict transition.

Honors

She received more than ten national and international awards for her journalism achievement during the Bosnian War. In 2002, Turgut became an International Knight Fellow at Stanford University. Şerif Turgut featured in the documentary television series titled ''Savaşı Anlatan Kadınlar'' (literally: "Women War Correspondents") broadcast by the Turkish channel TRT on the International Women's Day in 2013.

Personal life

She was a friend of Spanish war correspondent Miguel Gil Moreno de Mora, with whom she went to

Srebrenica Srebrenica ( sr-cyrl, Сребреница, ) is a town and municipality located in the easternmost part of Republika Srpska, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a small mountain town, with its main industry being salt mining and a nearby ...

right after the 1995 massacre there. Miguel Gil Moreno was later shot to death in the

Sierra Leone Civil War The Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002), or the Sierra Leonean Civil War, was a civil war in Sierra Leone that began on 23 March 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), with support from the special forces of Liberian dictator Char ...

. During her service in the Second Liberian Civil War, she became a friend of the war correspondents

Tim Hetherington Timothy Alistair Telemachus Hetherington (5 December 1970 – 20 April 2011) was a British photojournalist. He produced books, films and other work that "ranged from multi-screen installations, to fly-poster exhibitions, to handheld de ...

from England and

Chris Hondros Chris Hondros (March 14, 1970 – April 20, 2011) was an American war photographer. Hondros was a finalist twice for a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography. Biography Chris Hondros was born in New York City to immigrant Greek and Ge ...

from the U.S., who were killed in the 2011 Libyan Civil War.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Turgut, Serif Date of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) George Washington University alumni Turkish war correspondents Turkish women journalists Turkish television journalists Sabah (newspaper) people War correspondents of the Iraq War Stanford University Knight Fellows Turkish officials of the United Nations Living people Year of birth missing (living people)