A missing camera found after 15 years captured the last moments of a foreign journalist before he died in Myanmar.
A long-lost camera revealed an untold story of a Japanese journalist who was shot during a street protest in Myanmar more than a decade ago.
The footage retrieved from the missing device showed that fateful day, on September 27, 2007, when veteran Japanese video journalist Kenji Nagai was killed at the height of the so-called Saffron Revolution.
The revolution was associated with the saffron-colored robes worn by the Buddhist Monks, who at that time were leading the mass protests in several cities in Myanmar against military rule.
By the time Nagai arrived in Myanmar, the protests had been going on for 6 weeks, and tensions have already escalated between the soldiers and the monks.
Wearing shorts and flip-flops while holding his small, hand-held camera, the Japanese journalist joined a large crowd gathered near the historic Sule Pagoda in Central Yangon on September 27.
After a few moments, another journalist saw him fall and soldiers were seen carrying his body away.
His body and possessions were returned to Japan 10 days later while his camera was returned to his sister during a handover ceremony in Bangkok last week.
Nagai’s sister Noriko said that although her brother lost his life, she sees him not as a hero but as a journalist who was willing to keep fighting, noting that he threw himself right into the turmoil against the backdrop of an ongoing revolution.
