I traveled to the town of Bria in the Central African Republic, where a spasm of violence has sent shockwaves through an already traumatised population and ripples of fear throughout CAR that the country is descending back into chaos.
FULL STORY FOR AL JAZEERA ENGLISH: http://bit.ly/2s0M3F6

A UN armoured vehicle patrols a road near the town of Bria, which saw heavy fighting this week [Cassandra Vinograd/Al Jazeera]

(Returning to my AP roots with this piece on violence in CAR.)
Gunmen looted humanitarian compounds as fighting gripped the Central African Republic town of Bria while more than 20,000 people have fled to a nearby U.N. peacekeeping base. Full story: http://bit.ly/2z0WLmk

... Proud and honored to have been chosen for an SPJ Sigma Delta Chi award with my NBC colleagues for our coverage of the Brussels attacks. https://www.spj.org/news.asp?REF=1507

Such a privilege sharing the stage with some incredibly talented journalists for the panel at American University on conflict journalism. Thanks for those who came and asked questions. You can check out the video here: https://pulitzercenter.org/blog/egalitarian-perspective-women-conflict-journalism

It was just before dark, and Charles was pulling weeds with his father in South Sudan’s Western Equatoria state when roughly a dozen armed rebels appeared, demanding he join their ranks. Charles was terrified. His father tried to intervene, but he was outnumbered. That night, Charles, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, was separated from his father and forced to become a soldier. He was just 13 years old.

Full story for NEWSWEEK: http://www.newsweek.com/2017/03/31/south-sudan-civil-war-child-soldiers-572025.html

Am immensely grateful to the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, which gave me a grant to cover the crisis in South Sudan. Grants like these are absolutely critical for today's freelancers [and staff journalists, too!]. Count myself lucky to be in the Pulitzer Center family. You can find the whole project here: http://pulitzercenter.org/projects/close-look-inside-south-sudans-bitter-war

Cedric Herrou, a farmer from a French-Italian border village, organized a small network of underground smugglers to help migrants pass into France. He’s now facing jail time.

Had fun working with Keir Simmons on this piece for NBC's "TODAY SHOW."

For five months, Nyabany and her five children had avoided the gunfire. But they were dying all the same. The “constant” firefights near Nyabany’s village brought on by South Sudan’s civil war drove her family into nearby swamps, where they hid partially submerged in water and ate water lilies to survive until the fighting died down. But by November, even the flowers became impossible to find, and starvation soon set in. “Hunger was worse than the shooting,” Nyabany said.

Full story on VICE NEWS: https://news.vice.com/story/south-sudans-civil-war-pushes-the-country-toward-famine