COVERING THE STUDENTS FLEEING WAR AND RACISM: GLOBAL CITIZEN.

• Author: Mlaba, Khanyi

Technology has dramatically altered how information can be gather and conveyed. Two industries in particular, academia and journalism, collide in the story of African students in Ukraine fleeing the war and attempting to continue their studies in the face of racism. The Journal spoke with Khanyi Mlaba, a Nairobibased journalist and the Africa editor with the news outlet Global Citizen, who has covered the challenges students encountered trying to get out. The discussion covers the plight of African students in Ukraine and across Europe, the difficulty of responsibly covering war from afar, and the inescapable reality of racism that so many encountered just trying to learn--and swvive.

Journal of International Affairs (JIA): When did you first become aware that there were African students in Ukraine experiencing difficulties?

Khanyi Mlaba (KM): We were reporting on the war from the beginning, from Russia's invasion that very first day in February 2022. We had done some coverage on it, and then from there we wanted to look at how it affected other places and other things. As the editor for the Africa region at Global Citizen, one of the main things that I wanted to start looking at was how the war would impact the African continent. While I was looking into that, the reports started coming out that Black people and African students were facing discrimination and racism at borders. That's when I initially jumped on that.

What we did at first was secondary reporting, telling the story of what other people were reporting, which we then published on the Global Citizen website. We shared what The Telegraph and The Guardian had been reporting. Within a day or two after that, mainly because we have a different audience, we started receiving a lot of emails and DMs and messages from people who themselves were experiencing racism and discrimination at the borders or who knew people who were experiencing that. That's how we started the story. We first wanted to cover how everyone in the world could help the situation, Ukrainian citizens on the ground. That was the initial reporting, after which we moved into reporting on how it could impact the African region. But while doing that research, it came out that there was that racism and discrimination at the borders, and then we started digging into it and talking to people. The more the story started coming out--and it was a difficult one, because a lot of people didn't want to go on the record--the more it became clear that people were really scared. It became a question of how we tell this story while also keeping people safe wherever they are, because they might still be in transit or still trying to figure out what their future is.

JIA: How did you think about balancing their requests for anonymity with their psychosocial needs? Students are simultaneously going through this incredibly difficult experience and providing you information for this story.

KM: I think it's something that a lot of us journalists have to put first and foremost. What did help was that a lot of the time when I did have interviews with subjects, we tried to establish it as a safe place first. I let anyone who wanted an interview come with whoever they wanted to come with, so that they wouldn't be alone. We also wanted to make sure that they knew that their story was going to be told right, because that's as much as we can do from our side of things. In interviews, particularly the interviews through the Global Black Coalition, we made it more of a forum, in which there were a bunch of us having a discussion rather than me having a one-on-one discussion with one person and putting that person on the spot. Instead, there were four or five of us in in one Zoom discussion. I think that was important, because the last thing you want to do is be intimidating. We also had translation because one of the interviewees was French. Then, everyone just shared their stories, and I would come in with a prompt question. I opened by indicating that subjects could tell us if there was anything that they did not want us to cover and that they could jump out at any time. What I saw the most from everyone that I spoke to was that they just wanted to say something. For instance, in the interview I conducted with Dr. Jessica Orakpo, who had gone viral a few months before on BBC, (i) I just wanted to gauge what the situation was like. (ii) To her, the main thing was that she just wanted the story out there, and once it was out there, she just wanted to move on. For those who tell their stories, the release of that emotional toll on them, and on Dr. Orakpo particularly is to ensure that people know that they're not alone, by getting the story out there. But she doesn't want to be known for that. She just wants to carry on being that woman who was interviewed for that event and bringing it into the spotlight.

As I said, it was a few things, wherever we could: having more than one person in the room, so that it didn't feel like an interrogation, rather it felt like an interview. This was especially important since, from what I've heard, a lot of the interviews to stay in certain countries did feel like an interrogation process--a detention process, rather than a refugee process. We wanted to make sure that that was the main thing, that whoever you want to talk with, there was another witness in the room. I gave them the freedom to do the interview however they wanted to. If you want to write it, if you want to provide voice notes, if you want me to send you three questions and you only answer those three questions: I gave a lot of options on how to do those interviews and how to speak to people.

JIA: Did you reach out to institutions for comment, those cited by students as causing difficult during the process of leaving Ukraine? And did they respond to you or ignore those requests for comment?

KM: We reached out to the Ukrainian Press Office for comment and was a bit more direct. We wanted these answers. We then reached out to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for comment. When we're talking to institutions, rather than to people, we would raise specific questions. We talked to the Swiss Government as well, mainly because there were a lot of claims going in their direction. That was also quite different.

With some, I felt very trailed along, as if we were about to get a response, and then nothing. But when I reached out to the IOM, particularly to find out what African countries were doing about the situation, and they were very responsive. I wanted to find out because these are African citizens abroad. What was the African continent doing? What are individual African countries doing? While we noticed a lot of direct response from our reports going out internationally, there was no actionable follow up. There was a whole lot of, "This is very bad and should not be happening." But then, of course, what did these governments do about it? That's the question I wanted to ask: What are we as the continent doing to either bring back our students or support our students abroad and make sure that they're not experiencing something terrible? While I did quickly...