The journalist spoke of the complex moments he lived reporting on the war in Iraq, even with fear for his friend.
Santiago Pavlovic was invited to the star Good night all, where he recalled his years as a war correspondent and recalled some reporting anecdotes; One of them is related to Raphael Cavada, his friend.
Both were in the coverage of the armed conflict between the United States and Iraq around 2003, specifically in the city of Baghdad. Without going any further, they stayed in the same hotel.
In this sense, Pavlovic maintained that that building was hit by an American projectile, right in an area where Cavada was staying with his team. Because of the above, he thought that he had died.
“The projectile from an American tank hit the Palestinian hotel where we were staying. Rafa was two floors above,” he recalled.
Santiago Pavlovic: “If you don’t have a certain spirit to be in the war… you don’t have to go. Not all journalists have to do the same”.
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Pavlović and Rafael Cavada
“That was tremendous, because you are with 100 other foreign journalists, and suddenly you see war, death. For me that was a very tremendous vision, because when the impact arrived at the hotel, the heat of combat had already passed. My concern was the Rafa, because I had told him to settle there to have a different angle of combat, “ he added.
Without going any further, he commented, the moment of greatest fright was when he saw that workers removed a seriously injured professional from that place.
“I always thought it was Cavada, until I realized it wasn’t. He came with his eyes open, his chin torn, and his femur sticking out. She died 15 minutes later,” she explained.
The two met again hours later. “Afterwards we hugged Rafael. He had been involved in helping a Russian journalist who died,” she concluded.