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Sudanese Help One Another Find Medicine, Water As State Collapses; Ukraine Not Confirming Reports On Dnipro River Crossing; A Mysterious Fleet Is Helping Russia Ship Oil Around The World; Maleficent Dragon Catches Fire During Fantasmic at Disneyland; Image Pregnant Woman Injured in Ukraine War Earns Award; Iranian Regime Accused of Reaching Beyond Borders; Emotional Visit to Nazi Death Camp; What it's like Being a Palestinian Reporter for Israeli TV. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired April 24, 2023 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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LAILA HARRAK, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to all of our viewers watching from around the world. I'm Laila Harrak. Ahead on CNN Newsroom. Sudan's deadly power struggle grinds on civilians left without food, shelter or medicine, after scores of countries evacuated their citizens.
A rare entity in Israeli media. A Palestinian journalist reporting in Hebrew. We'll show you the pressure he faces and the threats he's received.
And an image that captures the horror of Russia's war in Ukraine. We'll speak to the World Press Photo of the Year Award recipient.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from CNN Center. This is CNN Newsroom with Laila Harrak.
HARRAK: A 72-hour ceasefire between Sudan's warring factions has officially ended and now the armed conflict is entering its 10th day with no end in sight. The fighting has ravaged parts of the country, turning buildings into charred rooms with smoke billowing high into the sky. Civilians are running out of basic needs including shelter, food and medicine.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FREED ADEL, SUDANESE DEVELOPER (through translator): Khartoum is the most impacted city as the conflict is concentrated there due to the fact that all important state institutions are there. Most of the needs are medical due to the lack of hospital services, medical staff and the fact that people cannot reach hospitals. There is also a need for food because shops are closed and there is nowhere for people to buy their needs.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HARRAK: While on Sunday, authorities released inmates from a prison which held leaders from the toppled regime of Omar Bashir. The RSF paramilitary group accused the Armed Forces of freeing the prisoners to try to reinstate the former government. Earlier footage was released of the RSF leader near the presidential palace for the first time since fighting began while troops were seen celebrating in the video, but it's still unclear when it was shot.
All this comes as a growing number of countries are evacuating their citizens from Sudan. On Sunday, more than 1,000 people were carried out and many were taken temporarily to Djibouti. CNN Sam Kiley is there and shows us how the country has become a key base in the evacuation efforts.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SAM KILEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): A day of evacuations from the Sudanese capital was launched from here in Djibouti a multinational effort led by the United States, who beginning with a Special Forces operation launched three Chinook helicopters with of course, covert support from potentially AC 130 gunships. They flew via Addis Ababa, and then low, very, very low for some 800 miles into the Sudanese capital spending less than an hour on the ground. The Pentagon says rescuing some 70 plus individuals, most of them staffers from the U.S. Embassy, but also some foreign nationals.
Now Djibouti is very much the hub of an international rescue operation almost simultaneously with the Americans, a British and French forces were in the air and indeed on the ground, evacuating similar numbers about 100 plus from each of those nations out of Sudan in the case of the French, back here into Djibouti.
The British operation, the French operation, again involving Special Forces, a number of other countries have also been trying to get their people out of this war torn Sudanese capital, which is also the center of a violent storm that is engulfing very much the rest of the country and therefore some 19,000 potentially of U.S. citizens remain stranded in Sudan. Not all of them, of course, necessarily want to be evacuated.
But this is echoes again of the mass evacuations from the collapsing structures that followed the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan. But there is an anticipation that the international community, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, other countries, Turkey, Egypt, they're all trying to get their citizens out.
There is an effort being made by the Emiratis to try to run land convoys out and the remaining Americans are being told to stay in place at the moment whilst the State Department and the Pentagon tries to work out how they might be rescued as part of this wider international effort if it proves necessary, particularly if they have to try to make road moves but those themselves are extremely dangerous, very, very risky with heavy fighting going on, not just in the capitol but on a lot of the main roads.
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And of course there is a dwindling supply of food and fuel in the country and that is something is going to make any kind of rescue much, much harder. Sam Kiley, CNN in Djibouti.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRAK: While the evacuation of U.S. government personnel from Sudan was a carefully planned operation, conducted swiftly and ultimately safely. CNN's Kylie Atwood has more now on how it all played out.
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KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN U.S. SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (on camera): This was a major evacuation and the State Department obviously has evacuation plans for its embassies around the world. But what it did in recent days with its colleagues at the Pentagon was to actually get the pieces in place to carry out that evacuation and that was carried out on Saturday night after President Biden and the Secretary of State gave approval for that operation.
The State Department releasing a photo of the Secretary of State with his closest colleagues, his top State Department officials monitoring the situation on Saturday night.
And of course, this was a very fast operation. These military personnel on these aircraft flying in about 100 special forces on the ground in Sudan for less than an hour as they loaded up U.S. diplomats, their family members, some diplomats from other countries, a total of just under 100 people to get out of the country. They then flew out to Ethiopia.
And of course, one question that's remaining is the status of the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, according to the Secretary of State that remains temporarily suspended. Right now effectively closed until the U.S. government can get personnel back in the country. But they can't run that embassy without U.S. government personnel there.
And when it comes to U.S. citizens who are still in Sudan, we know that hundreds of them have been in touch with the State Department. Top State Department officials said on Saturday night that they don't expect that there is going to be a widespread evacuation plan for by the government for those citizens.
And what they are telling citizens is that they do want to be in touch with them provide as much support as they can. They are providing them with some details about convoys, overland routes out of the country that are being provided by other countries, but they are telling those citizens at this time, if they want to take part in those convoys, to do so at their own risk. Kylie Atwood, CNN, the State Department.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRAK: And for more I want to bring in Cameron Hudson. He's a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Africa Center. Cameron, welcome back to CNN. It's now 10 days that of relentless violence, and in a country that seems to be unraveling, how do you reflect on what you've observed so far? And a ceasefire, which is a ceasefire name only that is now officially ending?
CAMERON HUDSON, SENIRO ASSOCIATE, CSIS AFRICAN PROGRAM: Yes, I think that -- I think we have to be prepared for the worst now. I think that what we have seen is really a prelude to what is to come sadly. I think that there's a every likelihood that as international diplomats flee the city and the country, as we see more people leaving the safety and security of their homes to venture out trying to find more safe passage out of the country.
I think that there's a real risk both that with the international community gone, that fighting will increase. And as local civilians flee for greater safety, they could be caught in the crossfire as well. So, I think that things are going to get much, much worse before we have any hope of them getting any better.
HARRAK: Now, as you noted, a lucky few in Sudan have been evacuated. I mean, the U.S. embassy staff have been extracted. Other foreign nationals also made it out of the country, not to take away from the incredibly complex logistics involved. But are we to understand that the warring generals are able to allow safe passage, just not for the locals?
HUDSON: Well, I think that it's difficult to ascertain that throughout the country. There is no one answer to that. Certainly, when the, you know, Department of Defense comes calling to say that they need to clear the airspace for an hour so that Americans can be evacuated. Even that took a lot of negotiating and a lot of back and forth, because we don't have full certainty that either side has full command and control over their troops.
So even if a direct order is given to allow a safe passage for an international convoy or local convoy, you don't know what's going to happen at a checkpoint at a crossing or what troops might be doing, taking matters into their own hands, given the level of chaos and indiscriminate violence that we've seen in the last 10 days. So, I don't think that we can take with greater assurance that either side is able to guarantee safe passage for anyone really.
HARRAK: How in terms of U.S. nationals that are still in Sudan or Khartoum, the U.S. has said explicitly that there are no evacuation plans at the moment. Are you surprised by that?
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HUDSON: Well, I guess I'm not given the botched operation to take out so many thousands of people out of Kabul last year. We know that America -- that the United States has about 16,000 dual citizen nationals in the country. But if you multiply that by British and French and Canadian, you're looking at well over 100,000 very likely International dual citizens, that's an impossible number to try to evacuate, certainly via airlift, and certainly when the country's main civilian airport remains closed.
So it's just not possible to think of airlifting that number of people out. What we could be contemplating, though, are humanitarian safe corridors out of the country. And I think that that needs to be the focus right now, in addition to getting humanitarian assistance into the country where people are and pre-positioning that aid to where they are going.
HARRAK: Are these two generals just going to duke it out until the bitter end?
HUDSON: Well, I think sadly, there's a good likelihood that that's the case. I mean, we have to remember that this was not a spontaneous outburst of violence between these two gentlemen. This is not trying to resolve a simple disagreement at a negotiating table. This has been building for many years, even decades, in the country, between these two individuals and the institutions that they represent.
The Rapid Support Forces have never been seen in the eyes of the military as a proper defense force. They were a product. They were creation of the military, but never had high respect for them. Similarly, you know, the Rapid Support Forces come from the peripheral, marginalized regions of Sudan that have long been kept out of the political power that the military has held on to.
So there's no love lost between these institutions, or the individuals that run them. And I think that there's a lot of score settling that we're going to see playing out in the in the coming days and weeks to come.
HARRAK: Kevin Hudson, thank you.
HUDSON: Thank you.
HARRAK: Social media report suggests Ukrainian forces may have crossed the Dnipro River near the southern city of Kherson into Russian hell territory. Ukraine isn't confirming that but its southern military spokesperson says rather cryptically, everyone is waiting for good news and they will definitely get it. CNN's Ben Wedeman is in Kyiv for us with more.
BED WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Ukrainian forces may have crossed to the eastern bank of the Dnipro River near the city of Kherson, according to several social media channels. The Institute for the Study of War has geo located footage that shows Ukrainian troops have reached the eastern bank.
Now Ukrainian officials have neither confirmed nor denied these reports. But the Russian appointed head of the occupied Kherson region has flatly denied claims that Ukrainian troops have established a bridge head on the east bank.
Now it's not clear if this is the opening shot of Ukraine's spring offensive or just a diversionary of feint ahead of a larger push elsewhere.
Now overnight, Russia launched multiple air artillery and drone strikes across eastern Ukraine. Fighting continues to be intense in Bakhmut, where Ukrainian troops control a small and shrinking part in the city's west. There are also recent reports that heavy rains have made Ukrainian access to those parts of the city increasingly difficult. I'm Ben Wedeman, CNN reporting from Kyiv.
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HARRAK: The G7 is calling for the extension and full implementation of the Black Sea Green Initiative. But Russia is saying maybe not. A top Russian official says Moscow will terminate the agreement to allow Ukrainian grain to transit the Black Sea if the G7 bans its exports to Russia but the coalition of seven major countries and the EU says Russia is trying to weaponize food meant for nations most in need.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is due to discuss the Green Deal with the UN's Secretary General on his visit to New York this week.
While Ukraine struggles to get its grain out to the world, Russia is struggling to do the same with its oil. Western sanctions have forced Russia to change the way that it's shipping oil abroad, resulting in a mysterious fleet of so called gray tankers. CNN's Clare Sebastian investigates.
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CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): This calm blue sea of southern Greece now a new hub for Russia's oil trade. Taken in mid- March this satellite image shows oil tankers arranged in pairs experts say most of them involved in a cargo transfer.
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Data shows transactions like these have surged in recent months. This year on average five times more per month, dotting the picturesque waters near Greece's Kalamata port compared to 2021, according to cargo tracking firm Kpler.
MATTHEW WRIGTH, SENIOR FREIGHT ANALYST, KPLER: Is sort of a become a ship hub, where smaller vessels come in from Russian ports, they transfer the cargoes onto larger vessels, and then those larger vessels will head off through to through to Asia.
SEBASTIAN: Matthew Wright says the rise in ship to ship transfers is part of a big shift in shipping patterns. A European Union ban on most seaborne Russian crude oil and refined products means Russian exports now travel much longer distances to reach Asian customers. And he says while smaller vessels are better for docking at Russian ports, they're not ideal for long haul voyages.
WRIGHT: You can see the fact that it has loaded HSFO which is fuel oil.
SEBASTIAN: Those sanctions have also given rise to what rate calls the grey fleet tank has sold since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And his data shows exclusively now transporting Russian oil or refined products to some Western shippers started to avoid it. SEBASTIAN (on camera): Well, using tracking data and collaborating with experts, we were able to pinpoint one of those gray fleet ships in this image, here it is, that larger vessel and we traced this apparent transaction back in time the smaller vessel docking in St. Petersburg, in late February where according to Kpler, it picked up a cargo of fuel oil then we tracked it all around Western Europe and back here to the Mediterranean, the Greek Coast, at which point Kpler data shows it unloaded its cargo onto that larger grey tag ship.
SEBASTIAN (voiceover): That ship then transited the Suez Canal, apparently enroute to Asia.
WRIGHT: It's not illegal what they're doing. It's essentially a story of the transfer of ownership.
SEBASTIAN: Oil tanker sales have surged in the past year, and among them, Kpler says that same tanker here it is again tracked to the Russian port of Novorossiysk in December. Think tank vessels value estimates 105 tankers of a similar size changed hands in 2020 to double the volume of the previous year. It also says around a third of sales this year to newly formed companies, what undisclosed buyers.
At the International Maritime Organization in London that's shifting ownership, reinforcing safety concerns around ship to ship transfers.
FREDERICK KENNEY, INTERNATIONAL MARITIME ORGANIZATION: We're unable to determine the level of compliance with the IMO safety and environmental protection regime. The worst case scenario would be a casualty where a transfer line breaks and you have a major spill, or you have an explosion, and fire. There's myriad things that can go wrong in a ship to ship transfer.
SEBASTIAN: It's a situation that's not going away as Russia's war redraws the global energy map, creating a new logistics system increasingly controlled by lesser known players and loaded with potential risks. Clare Sebastian, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRAK: Still to come, thousands of customers of a rural Chinese bank are still waiting for their money a year after a scandal froze their assets. CNN speaks with the victims about how they're faring. Plus, a scary sight as people witnessed flames shooting from the entrance of a commercial jetliner and it's one of two airline fires being investigated by U.S. authorities. We'll tell you what exactly happened.
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HARRAK: Thousands of customers of a rural Chinese bank are still trying to get their money back one year after a banking scandal saw their assets frozen. Some say they've been tracked, harassed or physically attacked by local officials. CNN's Selina Wang sat down with some of the bank's customers. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): In China's central Henan province this month, demonstrators chant give me my money back. One poster reads America Silicon Valley Bank customers got their money back in three days. But China's Henan village bank's customers haven't been given a cent in a year.
These protesters are victims of a banking scandal that started last April when several small banks in Henan froze depositor funds impacting an estimated 400,000 customers according to a state run magazine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Some depositors, myself included can no longer survive. Because all of our money is stored there. Some people may commit suicide, some depositors may hurt others. Everyone has a tipping point with you.
WANG: This banking victim in Beijing is the lawyer who is gathering depositors to sue the local authorities. He says all they want is their money back. But instead they're being tracked, harassed, or even worse. While the banks are now open for business, an estimated several 1,000 still cannot access their money. The banks and authorities have ignored the victim's relentless efforts to get answers over the past year.
We're not revealing the identities of all the victims who spoke to us in order to protect their safety. This couple in Shanghai says earlier this year, the government hired people to stay outside of their apartment for weeks.
On March 4th, right before China's biggest annual political meeting in Beijing, they say their car was suddenly stopped on the streets of Shanghai. They were driving to meet a relative and shot this encounter on a phone. Get in our car. The man in the brown jacket demands. No, she replies. So many people have surrounded us. What are you trying to do? She asks. The couple says the men been through black cloth bags over their heads and drove them to an island outside of Shanghai.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We were locked up for 11 days they illegally detained us and confiscated our bank cards, phones and wallets. I tried my best to cooperate with them. Still, they beat me.
WANG: He says the authorities were paranoid they might travel to Beijing to demonstrate during the political meeting. The banks regulators and local authorities have not responded to CNN's multiple attempts to contact them about these serious allegations.
Last summer, police violently crushed peaceful demonstrators demanding their money back. Then, weeks later, authorities blamed the scandal on financial fraud, arrested hundreds of alleged suspects and promised to start paying depositors back.
Chinese media has reported that the government has the crisis under control but as ignored the stories of these bank victims. Meanwhile, pro Communist Party social media influencers have been zeroing in on the bank failures in the US. This one says explosive news the U.S. is facing a catastrophe. Another says it might be the end of the U.S. if they fail to handle this well. And state tabloid Global Times published this dramatic infographic, but the U.S. government quickly stepped in to pay back the depositors in full.
WANG (on camera): Have you received any sympathy any response from the authorities?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): No I have not. The government's attitude is that as long as they've suppressed the people with problems, there's no need to pay back the money is completely different from how Silicon Valley Bank was handled.
WANG (voiceover): This depositor from Xinjiang province went to the protests last summer then says he was beaten by the police.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I can't get the money soon then my children and I can only live on the streets.
WANG (on camera): Do you have hope that you're going to get your money back?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): People like us have been robbed of money, yet we are treated like criminals. If my money cannot be withdrawn, only one option is left for me, which is death.
WANG (voiceover): Experts say the crisis in Henan is just the tip of the iceberg as China's economy slows and debt believes.
ANDREW COLLIER, MANAGING DIRECTOR, ORIENT CAPITAL RESEARCH: What happened in Henan is likely to occur elsewhere in the country. They're willing to oppress people using the police in order to get the message across to the banking system that they can't play fast and loose and money.
WANG: Back in Beijing, the lawyer says his relentless legal efforts may be their only hope.
WANG (on camera): If you do get the money back. What is your plan?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Leave the country with kids and parents because I want my children to grow up in a democratic and free and rule of law country.
WANG (voiceover): Selina Wang, CNN, Beijing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRAK: Disneyland fans in California got quite a scare on Saturday and not the fun kind. A mechanical dragon caught fire during the night's performance of Fantasmic. A show with water features and the pyrotechnics set to music from Disney movies. You can see the fire spreading from the dragon's head in this video taken from the audience but the flame soon spread to the entire body of the creature. Firefighters say all performers and guests were evacuated from the area and nearby REITs (ph) had to be shut down due to the smoke and wind.
And U.S. aviation authorities are investigating two separate airplane fires both of which happened on American Airlines flights. CNN's Polo Sandoval has the details.
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POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): But nines of resident of Columbus Ohio speaking to CNN said on Sunday morning he left his home headed out for a jog he looked up and he saw and heard this.
That there was American Airlines Flight 1958 as it made a safe return to the airport in Columbus, Ohio early Sunday morning not long after taking off nine's plane enthusiast describing to CNN that pulsing sound that made him look up almost sounded like a jetski, according to what he told CNN.
The airline confirming the Boeing 737 experienced a bird strike causing a mechanical issue the flight landed normally and then taxied safely back to the gate. According to the airline, which was as of Sunday afternoon was efforting an additional flight to get the passengers to their final destination in Phoenix.
Video from a separate incident. This one on Thursday evening showing some really scary moments aboard American Airlines flight 2288 with service from Charlotte Douglas airport to Dallas, Texas. This flight never even got off the ground. One passenger report that flight using her phone captured some of the smoke some of the flames that were spewing from the wing of the aircraft. This is how she described the situation for our affiliate WSOC.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nobody knows what's happening. So it's the first instinct of the plane is going to blow so everyone's grabbing their bags trying to get up and running the aisle.
SANDOVAL: The Federal Aviation Administration continues investigating to these two separate incidents which so far don't appear to be related. Pablo Sandoval, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRAK: An image that captured the horrors of war earns the World Press Photo of the Year award. A conversation with the photographer is next.
And they left Iran but they say the regime is still tracking that the disturbing story of what activists say is happening far beyond the borders of the Islamic Republic.
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LAILA HARRAK, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to our viewers all around the world.
I'm Laila Harrak. And this is CNN NEWSROOM.
An image that captured the atrocities of Russia's war in Ukraine has been chosen as the World Press Photo of the Year. It shows a pregnant -- an injured pregnant woman being carried from a maternity hospital in the city of Mariupol, which had been damaged by shelling.
A photojournalist for the Associated Press took the photo in March of last year. A surgeon confirmed just days later that the woman and her baby died. The World Press photo jury says the image captures the absurdity and horror of war.
Now, last hour, I spoke with Brent Lewis, the global jury chairperson for the award. And I asked him what made them decide on this photo.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRENT LEWIS, PHOTO EDITOR, NEW YHORK TIMES: This image stood out just because of so much of what it invoked. I mean, we saw this year -- we saw what happened with the invasion of Ukraine. And I think the one thing that we've seen in this war so much more was just the human toll.
One of the jurors said that it feels like looking at this image that Russia is not only taking and destroying what's Ukraine now but also the future of Ukraine.
Also the idea that like the photographers, this is where he is from. He is from Mariupol. His background is Ukraine, so that he walked these streets six months before and just how much of that life was turned upside down because of what happened.
It takes so much to show your own community. It takes so much to not flee, but understand that you have a responsibility as an insider, as a person that knows this, to show that to the outside world and to show what's going on.
No matter what you know about this war, this image is that. This image is the image that will tug at your heartstrings for years to come. Much like back to Napalm Girl (INAUDIBLE). You think about me even throughout some of the images that we're seeing out of length (ph) from 9/11 like these are those images that stay with you.
And I think this is that one that would sustain power that we couldn't turn away from.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRAK: Joining me now from Dusseldorf, Germany is Evgeniy Maloletka, chief photographer for the Associated Press in Ukraine and the world press photo of the year award recipient. A very warm welcome. Congratulations Evgeniy for winning the World
Press Photo of the Year. Can you tell us more about the story behind this photo?
EVGENIY MALOLETKA, CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER, ASSOCIATED PRESS UKRAINE: Thank you so much.
I don't think it's some very kind -- very polite to say like congratulations because it's not congratulations to me.
Yes, you know, it's good for Ukraine that that image has been highlighted. I think it's important because for me, it's a very important image. But when I received congratulations, it's both ways, you know, and what they have -- what's behind those image that is an airstrike, which destroyed the maternity ward and three people being killed including Irina Kalinina, the lady on the stretcher which being based on the third floor of the maternity ward.
And for 30 minutes, the rescue workers are evacuating people and looking for the people who need to be evacuated immediately to the hospital.
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MALOLETKA: But unfortunately this time -- you know for this -- for this specific time, you know, Irina lost too many blood and the child was born already dead and doctors couldn't save life of Irina.
And I spoke to her husband, Yvan (ph). And he told me a story how he was looking for her for two days. For the third he was trying to find her (INAUDIBLE) alive. But the next day he found her a month dead and the numbers of bags with other dead bodies. The people who are unidentified.
HARRAK: I'm wondering Evgeniy and you started the conversation by rightfully pointing out that the conflicting feelings that you have about receiving this award and, I'm wondering what are some of the dilemmas that you grappled with when you were in Mariupol? Are there photos you took during the siege of Mariupol that you decided not to publish.
MALOLETKA: You know, it's always dilemma of we need a graphic content, what are you thinking during this kind of horrible things what you see.
And it's important that some images we can send because they will not destroy -- don't have so many graphics on it and that will be really important to publish because we have all our journalists. We have a standards. What images can be published and we still using the standards when we working. And when we editing and to use the, you know, like it's a general rules but sometimes, you know, we have spoken to the editors, we are speaking to our colleagues and we say that this is the image that is graphic, but this image, which is showing the war crime of the Russians so it need to be shown.
(CROSSTALK) HARRAK: And that's way Evgeniy, your work is so important because you are documenting what is happening in this war, and I'm wondering, you know, covering war means working under unimaginable and incredible pressure.
But covering war in your own country. That must be something completely different, especially documenting the siege of Mariupol. I mean, you were part of an AP team that was there. I believe for 20 days living through the siege. What was that like?
MALOLETKA: You know at that specific time working as a team was my partner like (INAUDIBLE) driving closed most of the time, sleeping on the floor for a week with the patients in the hospital, in the shelter with 2,000 people, in the ambulance station in the corridor of the hotel and some other places.
So for us sometimes, you know, drinking melt snow or trying to find the food as others. Or and trying to find the power to charge your cameras. Because without that, it will be hard and using in the end one on the one spot Internet in the city. Sitting under the stairs and hide your hand with the phone and filing the pictures and replying to the editors and your relatives that you are alive.
So it was like that. It's very big combination of what's going on in one single place in such short period of time. But I have never seen so many children being killed in one single place in such short period of time.
It was really hard to understand what's going on and why. Why? Why? It's like in the end of the day we spoke to each other and sometimes really can't find the words to communicate because the image is what we saw, and people reactions, you know, and we spoke to these families who lost their loved ones.
[01:40:02]
MALOLETKA: It was really hard to understand for us that it's really the war is killing so small kids.
HARRAK: It's difficult to understand what is going on. But your images are so powerful, so visceral, I think, the world knows what's going on in Ukraine because of you and your colleagues' work.
Thank you so much Evgeniy Maloletka. Thank you.\
MALOLETKA: Thank you so much. Thank you.
HARRAK: Activists who fled Iran are finding the government is tracking them to discourage dissent. The repressive regime in Tehran is even targeting the families they left behind.
Salma Abdelaziz picks up the disturbing story from Paris.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Women and girls' hair flowing dancing at a gathering in Paris for "Women, Life, Freedom", the slogan of Iran's anti government movement.
But even here firmly within the borders of Europe, activists say Tehran's tentacles can reach and crush voices of dissent. Activist Massi Kamari fled to France about four years ago as a political refugee.
MASSI KAMARI, IRANIAN DISSIDENT IN PARIS: Since I'm here I am -- I can freely explain my feelings. I try to be the voice of my people in Iran that are suffering.
ABDELAZIZ: But Kamari says she soon found herself under threat again. She says Iran's intelligence service was harassing her parents back home, demanding to speak to her.
KAMARI: They've taken my mother's phone and they push me and they force me to call my mother's phone. And then there was a guy who answered.
ABDELAZIZ: So this man answered your mother's phone.
KAMARI: Yes, exactly.
ABDELAZIZ: Kamari said she recorded the chilling call with a man she believes is a member of Iranian intelligence. Though CNN cannot verify that.
"Whatever actions you take against the Islamic Republic there in France is a crime," the man says. "And your family will answer for it."
"No, sir," she responds. "Nowhere in the world is that the law?"
"Listen," he says, "your mother will be taken to Evin Prison at her age. Your sister and your father will also be taken to Evin Prison. They will be interrogated."
KAMARI: It was so hard. I mean because I don't understand how far these people can go.
ABDELZAZIZ: The Islamic republic is brutally cracking down on a popular uprising that has rocked the country for months. Dissidents abroad play a crucial role in this movement carrying protesters demands from the streets of Iran into the halls of western governments.
That's exactly why Iran is expanding its repression campaign, says this activist of three decades.
KAMARI: It is a fact that the regime of Iran they have the power, but we are the opposition, but we are I think numerous. We have a breach (ph) which is today the people inside and the people outside.
ABDELZAZIZ: And nowhere is safe.
KAMARI: I could have been killed. ABDELZAZIZ: In January, the U.S. Justice Department uncovered a plot to assassinate prominent Iranian dissidents Masih Alinejad near her home in Brooklyn. The State Department has warned that Tehran is engaged in other acts of transnational repression to intimidate or exact reprisal against individuals outside of the country's sovereign borders, according to a 2022 report.
CNN's request for comment to Iran's authorities have gone unanswered.
For now Kamari says her parents are safe, but she barely speaks to them as a precaution.
How -- how do you still come out and do your work and do your activism.
KAMARI: Because I'm not going to stop my activities because they are threatening me.
ABDELAZIZ: A critical community in exile, under threat and under pressure but unbowed and unafraid.
Salma Abdelaziz, CNN -- Paris.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRAK: Just ahead, CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Dana Bash visit Poland and go on a very emotional tour of a Nazi death camp where some of their own relatives died.
[01:44:20]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRAK: Last week was the 80th anniversary of the start of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the month-long fight against Nazi forces during World War II. CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Dana Bash recently attended Holocaust remembrance events in Poland and visited the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, where some of their own relatives were killed.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN HOST: I've never been here.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: You've never been here.
BASH: No, I've never been to Auschwitz. I've never been to any of these camps.
BLITZER: Ever since I was a little boy I knew my parents were Holocaust survivors. I knew my dad was from here.
BASH: He was from Auschwitz?
BLITZER: He was from the town here, which had a Yiddish name Auschwitzein (ph). This is so painful for me. It's so personal for me because it's also where my grandparents were killed during the Holocaust and two of them my paternal grandparents. My dad's mom and dad were killed here at Auschwitz.
BASH: And your dad's siblings didn't survive.
BLITZER: One sister she died. One younger sister. The others were all killed.
The end of the war, they were liberated at Bergen Belsen. And they were taken on this forced march for the Nazis.
BASH: Yes. The death march.
BLITZER: The death march, yes.
BASH: That's how my great aunt died with --
BLITZER: My dad's younger brother died on the death march.
BASH: My great grandparents. They were Hungarian. So they were safe until 1944 in Hungary because Hitler didn't invade there until close to the end of the war. So my grandparents were in the United States, and they were receiving some letters from my grandmother's parents.
And as the letters came, they were getting more and more dire. And we have the final letter that says, "Until this moment at least I could hold myself together. But now I have to write a farewell letter to my dearest children. My heart is getting very heavy. I must stop after every word and collect myself in order to continue writing."
And they were saying goodbye before they came here.
BLITZER: They knew what was about to happen.
BASH: They knew what was going to happen by that time. They knew. I'm looking around, and I'm thinking I don't even know if they made it into the barracks (ph).
BLITZER: Just --
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: Yes.
BLITZER: This is where I believe my grandparents were killed.
BASH: You think your grandparents were killed right here.
BLITZER: Yes. In this crematorium -- terrible. Just three brothers --
BASH: But they were nothing, not people.
There's so many people here because today --
BLITZER: It's a special day --
BASH: -- the March of the Living.
BLITZER: Yes.
BASH: And it's called March of the Living because --
[01:49:56]
BLITZER: The Nazis took them out of the death march. Today we're doing the March of the Living which is so powerful and people from all over the world.
BASH: People from all over the world come. Including Rapper Meek Mill an invited guest of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
MEEK MILL, RAPPER: It behooves all of us to stop all kind of hate.
BASH: -- who started an organization to combat growing anti Semitism, Stand Up to Jewish Hate.
Why was it so important for you to come here?
MILL: First of all, I think it's a important for me to learn humanity's history. I wanted to come here and see this for myself and learn about it for myself.
BASH: Kanye West has said some really anti Semitic things. How do you see your role here in trying to beat that back.
MILL: We're two different artists. We represent two different things. Even when he was speaking on them things I wasn't educated to even know right from wrong. But I know a lot of things he was saying was wrong because it sounded like hate.
Now that I had an education, I'd definitely spread the word, tell people in my culture about what I've seen and what I felt at that concentration camp today.
BASH: What did you see and feel?
MILL: I seen terror, pain? Something you can't really explain. It was -- it was not nice to see.
BLITZER: I'm really (INAUDIBLE). They have kept this place.
BASH: I was thinking about that.
BLITZER: So that people can -- see and they know it was not some myth.
BASH: Did I ever show you this necklace?
BLITZER: No.
BASH: This is Matilda Vidwer (ph), my great grandmother. She was killed right here in Auschwitz. And she gave this locket to my grandmother the last time they saw each other in Hungary.
And then my grandmother gave this to my mother. And when my son Jonah was born, my mother gave it to me. This is my most prized possession. BLITZER: Beautiful.
BASH: And I wanted to wear it here. Hoping that she somehow knows somewhere that her legacy lives on. What you always say Wolf, about when your father would see you on TV.
BLITZER: This was revenge. For he will be satisfied not just to see his son on TV, but you know that a child of Holocaust survivors was reporting the news.
BASH: The best revenge is to survive and to thrive.
BLITZER: Yes. That's why it's so important that we educate and we show the world what was going on, and that's what we're doing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRAK: What's it like to be a Palestinian working for Israeli TV? CNN's Hadas Gold has his story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HADAS GOLD, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Nearly every evening on Israeli news channel Kan 11, one of the top reporters speaks Hebrew with a very slight accent.
Suleiman Maswadeh is a rare entity in Israeli media, one of very few Palestinians reporting in Hebrew and not just on Arab issues.
How do you identify yourself?
SULEIMAN MASWADEH, PALESTINIAN REPORTER ON ISRAELI TV: I don't know, because I was born in east Jerusalem to Palestinian family to a Palestinian culture. And I'm not ashamed to say that I'm Arab- Palestinian. But I also live in Israel, I also feel Israeli in some ways.
I don't know. I just say I come from Jerusalem and I'm a journalist, and that's still most important things of my identity.
[01:55:00]
GOLD: Maswadeh grew up in the old city of Jerusalem, playing soccer in the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, attending a strict Islamic boys school.
Though he now reports the news in fluent Hebrew, he did not learn the language until he was 20 years old, which is just seven years ago.
What prompted you to want to become a reporter?
MASWADEH: Back in the second intifada, I lived in the (INAUDIBLE) in Jerusalem. And you remember that the explosions in the busses and in Jerusalem. And I didn't know what's happening. You know, I didn't speak Hebrew
and I just look at the TV and I felt that I want to be there like I want to report. I want to do something.
GOLD: His journey to journalism was not a straight one working at a hotel, studying accounting at a Palestinian university and then learning Hebrew before attending an Israeli college. Maswadeh landed an internship with the Israeli public broadcaster KAN's Arabic channel. And after a jump to the network's main Hebrew channel, he became Jerusalem's correspondent where he's covered everything from clashes between police and Palestinians in refugee camps to Israeli politics.
His first major scoop put the spotlight on his constant internal dilemma. How to balance pressure from his community versus the story.
In 2020, Maswadeh showed how COVID restrictions were being violated at the al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, one of the holiest sites in Islam. The backlash was swift.
MASWADEH: And I remember that my grandfather calling me and telling me that everyone there is, you know, talking to him and tell him that what is grandson did was a shame to the community.
Maswadeh says he feels like he is an important voice for Palestinians in the newsroom. Here, he breaks the Ramadan fast this year with dates at his desk, teaching his colleague's (INAUDIBLE).
Thought he says his family is proud of him. He also says they want him to quit. When he visits (INAUDIBLE) refugee camp he does so only late at night for his own protection.
You said you received death threats. Do these come from Israelis, from Palestinians? And how do you deal with that?
MASWADEH: I get the -- I got death threats from both sides, but it was mainly from Palestinians who don't like the fact that I work for Israeli TV.
My answer to that is, this is where you make things different like I can make effect on people's lives in Israeli TV. I feel that I'm you know, giving a message for Jewish people that if you give all the people, citizens of east Jerusalem sort of a chance like I got everyone can be like me.
GOLD: Last month, Maswadeh was promoted to be a political correspondent and is even anchoring, vowing to continue breaking barriers with every report.
Hadas Gold, CNN -- Jerusalem.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRAK: thank you so much for watching. See you next time.
[01:58:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
