462 Days: Kidnapped in Somalia P6

In August 2008, Australian photojournalist Nigel Brennan travelled to Somalia on assignment. It would be the last decision he made as a free man for nearly a year and a half.

Within days of arriving, Nigel and Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout were ambushed on the outskirts of Mogadishu and taken captive by members of a militant group. What followed was 462 days of unimaginable physical and psychological torment, starvation, isolation, beatings, and a desperate will to survive in conditions that would break most people within weeks.

But this is not just a story about captivity. It is a story about what happens to a human being when everything is stripped away. The fear, the negotiation, the impossible decisions made by families on the other side of the world trying to bring their loved ones home. The moments of dark humour and unexpected humanity in the most inhuman of circumstances. And the daring escape attempt that changed everything.

Then there is the question that haunts every survivor, who do you become on the other side? How do you rebuild a life, a sense of self, a relationship with the world, after 462 days in hell?

In this series Jack Laurence sits down with Nigel Brennan for an extraordinarily candid conversation spanning the months before the kidnapping, the ordeal itself, and the long and difficult road to recovery. It is one of the most remarkable survival stories ever told.

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