It was January 31, 2015 (local time) when the video of the murder of Kenji Goto, a journalist who was detained by the Islamic State (IS) while covering Syria during the civil war, was released on the Internet. It has been almost four years since then. Where was Mr. Goto killed and where was his body buried? There has been almost no information until now, and his corpse still lies in a distant foreign land.
I want to pick up Mr. Goto’s bones and return him to his homeland.
Masao Endo, 64, has been reporting on conflict zones around the world for more than 40 years. After working for a U.S. news agency, Endo became a freelance news photographer, and his work has been published mainly in international newspapers such as TIME, NEWSWEEK, and STERN.
Endo was not a particularly close friend of Mr. Goto. Other than the one time they worked together on a TV program, they were just friends who met by chance and exchanged greetings. Even so, he always respected the sincere work of the journalist, who was more than ten years younger than he was. After Goto’s death, people in Japan mourned his tragic end, but at the same time, the theory of “self-responsibility” arose, and harsh words were hurled at the deceased and his family. The same logic applies to Junpei Yasuda, who was freed from the Islamic State (IS) in October last year after three years and four months, and was heavily criticized upon his return.
Endo has lost a number of journalists in the past. He was instrumental in bringing their bodies back to Japan. If a like-minded fellow journalist dies a horrible death in the field of journalism, isn’t it the role of journalists to pick up the bones of the deceased and put their regrets to rest? It is this thought that drives Endo to take action.