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Fearless' Boston Globe War Reporter Dies in Iraq
Elizabeth Neuffer, a veteran war correspondent and member of the Boston Newspaper Guild known for her bravery, impassioned pursuit of human rights abuses and eloquent writing, died in a car accident in Iraq on May 9.
The award-winning Boston Globe reporter, who had covered wars in Afghanistan, Rwanda and Bosnia, was a passenger in a car traveling to Baghdad from Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown. The car blew a tire and struck a guardrail. Neuffer, 46, and her translator were killed. The driver was slightly injured.
In addition to losing a friend, colleagues and editors said they lost someone uniquely willing and able to dig for the toughest stories and tell them in ways that made readers feel they were right there with her.
"She could go into a complex, dangerous spot, a place we thought we knew about, and she'd provide new insight, often at great risk to herself," said Brian MacQuarrie, a Boston Globe reporter who was embedded with the 3rd Infantry during the war.
MacQuarrie and colleague John Ellement, one of the newsroom delegates for TNG-CWA Local 31245, said the newsroom was stunned by the news, which was initially unconfirmed. "People just stood around hoping it wasn't true," Ellement said, recalling earlier days when he and Neuffer would run into each on their respective court beats. "She was very hard working, but she was also a lot of fun," he said.
Neuffer, the Globe's bureau chief at the United Nations, was "one of the best," said Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. "She went where the story was, and she was fearless," he told the Globe. "Not reckless, just very brave - brave both intellectually and physically."
During her globe-trotting career, Neuffer was the target of death threats, and was abducted and robbed, the paper reported. But she was determined to tell the stories of war and the lives affected. In 2001, she was awarded a fellowship and used it to write a book, "The Key to My Neighbor's House: Seeking Justice in Bosnia and Rwanda," which won rave reviews.
In one passage, she writes of searching for a murderous Bosnian soldier. "I've spent nights searching for him in drafty bars filled with grimacing thugs and pounding rock music, and days hunting him down, the car jogging along like a child's pogo stick on roads pitted by shelling and years of communist neglect. I've come too far to turn back now."
Charles Spicer, her editor at St. Martin's Press/Picador, said the book "was terribly, terribly important to her. It really was her way of furthering the goal of justice for the victims of genocide."
Neuffer was at least the 16th journalist, and third American reporter, to die in Iraq since the war started. She is survived by her parents, a brother and her longtime companion Peter Canellos, a Globe editor.
The award-winning Boston Globe reporter, who had covered wars in Afghanistan, Rwanda and Bosnia, was a passenger in a car traveling to Baghdad from Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown. The car blew a tire and struck a guardrail. Neuffer, 46, and her translator were killed. The driver was slightly injured.
In addition to losing a friend, colleagues and editors said they lost someone uniquely willing and able to dig for the toughest stories and tell them in ways that made readers feel they were right there with her.
"She could go into a complex, dangerous spot, a place we thought we knew about, and she'd provide new insight, often at great risk to herself," said Brian MacQuarrie, a Boston Globe reporter who was embedded with the 3rd Infantry during the war.
MacQuarrie and colleague John Ellement, one of the newsroom delegates for TNG-CWA Local 31245, said the newsroom was stunned by the news, which was initially unconfirmed. "People just stood around hoping it wasn't true," Ellement said, recalling earlier days when he and Neuffer would run into each on their respective court beats. "She was very hard working, but she was also a lot of fun," he said.
Neuffer, the Globe's bureau chief at the United Nations, was "one of the best," said Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. "She went where the story was, and she was fearless," he told the Globe. "Not reckless, just very brave - brave both intellectually and physically."
During her globe-trotting career, Neuffer was the target of death threats, and was abducted and robbed, the paper reported. But she was determined to tell the stories of war and the lives affected. In 2001, she was awarded a fellowship and used it to write a book, "The Key to My Neighbor's House: Seeking Justice in Bosnia and Rwanda," which won rave reviews.
In one passage, she writes of searching for a murderous Bosnian soldier. "I've spent nights searching for him in drafty bars filled with grimacing thugs and pounding rock music, and days hunting him down, the car jogging along like a child's pogo stick on roads pitted by shelling and years of communist neglect. I've come too far to turn back now."
Charles Spicer, her editor at St. Martin's Press/Picador, said the book "was terribly, terribly important to her. It really was her way of furthering the goal of justice for the victims of genocide."
Neuffer was at least the 16th journalist, and third American reporter, to die in Iraq since the war started. She is survived by her parents, a brother and her longtime companion Peter Canellos, a Globe editor.