Fellows & Editors
David Aquila Lawrence
- Trip:
- Fellows Spring 2000
- Affiliation:
- Freelance
- Country:
- Middle East
- Year:
- 2000
David Aquila Lawrence has been covering Iraq since he first went there on an IRP fellowship in March of 2000. In April 2009 he joined NPR as Baghdad Bureau Chief. \"Quil\" as he's been known since birth, grew up in East Benton, Maine. After a few years supporting a passion for travel and writing, he found his way to journalism in 1996, writing his first pieces from Morocco for The Toronto Globe and Mail and Christian Science Monitor Radio.
Quil moved to Bogota, Colombia in 1996, stringing for the Los Angeles Times, NPR and the BBC. For three years he reported on the Andean region, using Colombia as a base. A Spring 2000 IRP (Pew) Fellowship took Quil to Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan and Syria. He free-lanced from Cuba, Sudan and Morocco before joining the BBC as Latin America correspondent for The World, a week-day coproduction of PRI, WGBH and the BBC World Service
While at the BBC Quil covered Afghanistan in the final days of the Taliban, and returned there periodically to report on security, politics, culture and the drug trade. In 2003 he returned to Iraq three months before the US invasion. He crossed the mountains from Iran in a January blizzard, and stayed in the Kurdish controlled region until the fall of the government in Baghdad. Quil reported extensively from Iraq for The World, travelling to every major city, and reporting from all the neighboring countries. He covered the assault on Fallujah, and all of Iraq’s elections. Quil is the author of Invisible Nation: How the Kurds Quest for Statehood is Shaping Iraq and the Middle East.
Quil has won awards for his coverage of Colombia, Sudan and Iraq. He is fluent in Spanish and conversant in Arabic.
Stories
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“Invisible Nation: How the Kurds’ Quest for Statehood is Shaping Iraq and the Middle East”
Quil Lawrence is a Middle East Correspondent for BBC/PRI’s “The World” and a former IRP Fellow. He’s reported extensively from Iraq, traveling to every major...
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More Freedom for the Kurds
IRAQ, Spring 2000 -- Quil Lawrence reports on the Kurds living in northern Iraq. Because of UN air patrols, the Kurds are relatively independent of Iraqi control, and have a greater level of...
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Embargo Effect on Iraq
IRAQ, Spring 2000 -- Quil Lawrence reports on the devastating effect of the ten-year embargo against Iraq. Even with the recent program allowing Iraq to trade oil for food and medicine, the average...
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Iraqi Kurds Enjoy a De Facto State
DAL DA GHAN, Iraq, Spring 2000-- On the map it still says Iraq, but that's where the similarity ends. The school children in the tiny village of Dal da Ghan stand up...
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