A. Raffaele Ciriello, Photojournalist

I found the work and website of photojournalist A. Raffaele Ciriello just after his death in 2002. I wander in and visit sometimes, enjoying the images and writings left by this remarkable man who started out as a plastic surgeon.

Ciriello, 42, began his new career photographing motor-cycle races and events such as the Paris-Dakar race before becoming interested in war photo-journalism. He had reported on conflicts all over the world, including Lebanon, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Kosovo, Eritrea and Sierra Leone.

His site still opens with this: Raffaele would surely like this site to continue to thrive as it did when he was alive and passionately nurtured it. So we're keeping it online as it was left by him before his last departure for Ramallah.

We just added his last footage and one more area, with his last photos and comments from his workmates and friends. (this doesn't seem to be available anymore).

Goodbye Raffaele... see you.


Reporters without Borders wrote up his death 13 March 2002:
RSF appalled by death of Italian journalist in Ramallah

Reporters Without Borders said it was "appalled" by the death of Italian freelance journalist Raffaele Ciriello as a result of Israeli gunfire in Ramallah today and demands an immediate enquiry into exactly how he was killed and, if necessary, the trial of those responsible.

"For months, we have been denouncing the impunity enjoyed by Israeli troops firing on journalists," said RSF secretary-general Robert Ménard. "We have frequently been concerned by the almost complete lack of investigation by the Israeli authorities into such shootings. It was bound to lead to this kind of tragedy. Today, what we always feared has happened: a journalist has been killed, the first since the start of the second Intifada. We are appalled."

A report by RSF after a visit to the area last summer said there had been 45 incidents of journalists being wounded by gunfire, mostly by Israeli soldiers, over the previous 10 months. Since then, at least two more have been wounded in Israeli shootings.

The day before (12 March), about 30 journalists were standing on the balcony of a hotel overlooking the Al-Amari refugee camp in Ramallah when an Israeli tank opened fire on them. The journalists took cover inside the hotel. An Israeli army spokesman reportedly apologised to one of them by phone and said troops had mistaken them for Palestinian snipers and their cameras for guns.