Three weeks into my stay in Afghanistan, I was going through the worst experience of my life. I was in a cave knelling and my life at the hands of a young man who help an AK47 at the back of my head.  Never in my life had I imagined being in such a life-threatening situation. Three weeks ago, I was deployed to Kabul, the Afghanistan capital, to gather information on an uprising that was as a result of oppressive government policies. The revolution was being led by an ex-convict from one of the most notorious prisons in Afghanistan, and to get an interview from him, we had to travel to the mountains east of the country where he was in hiding.

            The day began just like any other, and after establishing contact with the camp where he, we were given directions to where we would meet our next contact, who would take us to the hiding place of the leader. The journey to our first contract was beautiful, and my teams of three and I got to experience the stunning sceneries that Afghanistan had to offer.  Our photographer could not resist the urge to take beautiful photos of the sceneries. As we traveled, I tried to polish up on the questions that I would. ask the rebel leader since I knew this was the first interview that he was willing to take, and I did not want to blow it off.

            Three hours after we started our journey, we arrived at a small town that we had been directed to, and upon checking into the hotel that we had been asked to fit into, the attendant asked us to wait for a while and went into an office and came back with his supervisor named Omar. We later learned that Omar was our contact. Omar requested us to rest in our rooms for the journey we were to embark on the following day was going to be hectic and tiresome.

            At the dusk of dawn, Omar woke us up, telling us we need to get started on our journey if we were wanted to make it on time to the camp. Omar had arranged for a camel caravan and two porters who would carry our luggage, which comprised of cameras and other shooting tools for the interview. The sun had not risen yet, and we had to trust that the caravan leader knew where he was headed in the dark. At midday, we were informed that we had traveled half of the distance and what was left was a climb up a mountain where the rebels lived in caves of the said mountains. To calm my negative mindset that I could not make it to the top of the mountain based on the distance we had traveled so far, I told myself that it’s just hike to embrace that challenge.

            After hiking for a few hours, we arrived at the camp, which was a cave in the mountains. The men armed themselves with weapons, which in some countries would be illegal to own. After being given nourishment and water to drink, I requested one of the men in charge to speak to the rebel leader to grant us. Is the interview since we wanted to head back home first thing in the morning. After a while, I got feedback that the leader had accepted, and we were given a place to set up. After setting up, a tall man covered to his face, and only his eyes left visible, came to us and introduced himself as the leader of the rebel group.

            We began the interview with me introducing myself and my crew members, and halfway into the interview, we heard a loud band from the entrance of the cave, and we heard a sudden exchange of gunfire, men shouting at each other with mixes of painful wails from the men we heard no option but to take cover, and soon we were all scattered, not knowing where everyone else escaped to. The rebel leader was nowhere to be seen. I guess he already had an escape plan, for he had anticipated something like this might happen. After a while, the gunfire started subsiding, and we heard a call from a man at a distance who requested us to surrender ourselves, and we would not be hurt. It was just me and my crew who were left at the cave in a pool of blood surrounded by bodies of men who took fire as a line of defense to allow their leader to escape.

            Soon after contemplating what to do, there was no option left but to surrender. We were forces to kneel down and gun places at the back of our heads, and we all had visions of executions by men whom we did not know for they did not have uniforms of any identifications on them. I gathered up enough courage to speak to their leader and told him that we were reporters, and we were there to do a story. The man looked at me with sharp piercing eyes and requested me to stand.  He told me to leave with my crew, for he was not after us but his rival. I did not want to know that back story of the rivalry, but I was glad we had our lives back. We were given an escort to our hotel where met Omar, and from there, we knew our way back home. We made a pack with the rest of my crew members never talk about what had just happened to us neither report it back home even though it would make an excellent story. That was one of the worst days of life.