{"id":2544,"date":"2012-09-07T13:20:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-07T13:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/?p=2544"},"modified":"2014-12-23T06:32:17","modified_gmt":"2014-12-23T06:32:17","slug":"dec-1996-rwandan-hutu-refugees-move-along-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2012\/09\/07\/dec-1996-rwandan-hutu-refugees-move-along-a\/","title":{"rendered":"Rwandan Hutu refugees move along a highway in Tanzania, 1996"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

For former Post-Gazette photojournalist Martha Rial<\/a>, an assignment to document human struggle in Central Africa amid the civil war and humanitarian crisis in Rwanda and Burundi was her first international experience. She traveled in December 1996 to Africa and met up with her sister, a nurse for the International Rescue Committee in Tanzania. \u201cIt was an incredible place to start,\u201d Ms. Rial said recently.<\/p>\n

She focused on covering the human dimension of the civil conflict: children, women, \u00a0men, mass migration. Her album \u201cTrek of Tears,\u201d published in the Post-Gazette in January 1997, received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography \u201cfor her life-affirming portraits of survivors of the conflicts in Rwanda and Burundi.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is there a photograph in the \u201cTrek of Tears\u201d series that stands out for the photographer herself?<\/p>\n

\u201cI am attached to all of them,\u201d said Ms. Rial, who later worked at the St. Petersburg Times and has returned to Pittsburgh as a freelance photographer. \u201cThere is one photo capturing the flow of Rwandan Hutu refugees trudging along a road in Tanzania. It was a very difficult photo to get. There were a lot of people on the road with as many possessions as they could carry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Rial was staying with aid workers in Tanzania, one of them gave her a lift to capture the flow of people. \u00a0\u201dWe had to be very careful. We drove for many, many miles. It took almost three hours to get that shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

The original caption for this photograph read: \u201cThey had tried to flee further away from Rwanda, into Tanzania, but had been turned back by Tanzanian soldiers. Several of the refugees said they would walk all the way to Kenya or Malawi just so they could avoid returning to Rwanda.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“It was a very difficult photo to get…”<\/p>\n

Look at the picturesRwandan Hutu refugees move along a highway in Tanzania, 1996<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[948],"tags":[975,965,980,1012,1250],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/tumblr_m9xxlq7dwR1rr5swxo1_r4_1280.jpg?fit=720%2C492&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2547,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2012\/09\/07\/dec-1996-bitama-7-cried-frequently-she-was\/","url_meta":{"origin":2544,"position":0},"title":"Tears of refugees","date":"September 7, 2012","format":"gallery","excerpt":"Her parents were murdered in Rwanda...","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/tumblr_m9yh8601Gz1rr5swxo1_1280.jpg?fit=576%2C419&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2550,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2012\/09\/07\/martha-rials-pulitzer-winning-album-trek-of-tears\/","url_meta":{"origin":2544,"position":1},"title":"Martha Rial’s Pulitzer-winning album \u201cTrek of Tears\u201d","date":"September 7, 2012","format":"gallery","excerpt":"\"As a journalist, as a photojournalist, as an artist, you have to take a risk to make your best work...\"","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/tumblr_m9yp6ip1lS1rr5swxo1_1280.jpg?fit=576%2C418&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8917,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2018\/06\/21\/jonny-gammage-couldnt-breathe\/","url_meta":{"origin":2544,"position":2},"title":"Jonny Gammage couldn’t breathe","date":"June 21, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"On Tuesday, an East Pittsburgh police officer killed an unarmed black teenager. 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