CORRUPTION IS KILLING CHILDREN IN ANGOLA

Jun 24, 2015 by

The World’s Deadliest Place for Kids

Nicholas Kristof reports on the rampant corruption in oil-rich Angola, which is depriving children of education and contributing to the highest rate of child mortality in the world.

By Adam B. Ellick and Nicholas Kristof

This is a video report that I’ll never be able to do again. It’s about Angola, an oil-rich and fabulously corrupt country that also happens to be the deadliest place in the world to be a child.

Angola, naturally, doesn’t welcome journalists. It took me about five years to get a journalist visa to get into Angola, and after my reporting I doubt I’ll get another visa as long as the current regime remains in power. So at The Times, we poured a lot of time and effort into the story of what corruption does to a country.

For me, the most compelling moments are those of rural Angola, the villages where people live without any access to doctors or dentists. We simply drove down a highway for hours, and then twice took small dirt roads quite randomly to see where they would lead, and then stopped in villages and chatted with people. It’s pretty heartbreaking to see kids suffering untreated from disease and unable to attend school, or to meet a mom who has lost 10 children — and it’s not just sad, but infuriating when you see it in a country that is rich with oil and diamonds. Then you remember that the Angolan president’s daughter is a billionaire, that Western governments are buddying up to the president — and, well, you feel you owe it to the villagers you met to tell their story in their own words. So we shot some videos to run with my columns. May this add pressure on the government to spend its oil wealth not just on Porsches and Champagne for the leaders, but also on health and education for ordinary Angolans.

I’m in the documentary, but the person who put it together is Adam B. Ellick, a senior Times video correspondent who has traveled with me in Iran, Bahrain and other countries. I hope you’ll watch the video, read the columns, and help spread the word about how it’s not just poverty that kills, but also local corruption and the world’s willingness to tolerate it.

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