Gregory Johnsen, 2006 winner of the OPC Foundation’s David R. Schweisberg Memorial Scholarship, has written a chilling piece about his narrow miss with kidnappers in Yemen.
The longform article in BuzzFeed describes his near abduction and harrowing escape in Sanaa, the weight of that experience on his psyche and how it affected his relatuionship with Yemen.
Johnsen, who was a Fulbright scholar in Yemen, published a book of his research and experiences in 2012 titled The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al-Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia.
Johnsen is currently the Michael Hastings Fellow at BuzzFeed. His Twitter handle is @gregorydjohnsen.