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Charming photojournalist who died in motor crash
Sadurni Carrasco Sumaya died in an accident. PHOTO/COURTESY
What you need to know:
- She had covered elections, demonstrations, protests, sports and fashion events.
Charismatic. Empathetic. Friendly. Lively. This was the nature of Sadurni Carrasco Sumaya. She would light up every room she walked into with her charisma.
Sumaya, who friends fondly called Sumy, was fun and life itself. No wonder after the fatal accident on March 7, tributes flooded various social media platforms in her honour.
The accident, which occurred during the wee hours of the night on Kampala-Gulu highway in Kiryandongo District, also claimed the life of Thomas Mugisha, who was driving.
Sumy, 32, was working as a Spanish-Mexican freelance photojournalist in Kampala.
“She was a colleague whom we worked with very closely and in addition to that, we were very close friends. I knew her when she came here (Uganda) to work, so that was about six years ago,” Mr Micheal O’ Hagan, an AFP correspondent, told Daily Monitor.
He praised her for being a brilliant photojournalist.
“She was pleased in the recent months and years because work was going well. People, including editors, were contacting her (for work), rather than having her pitch ideas. It is so tragic that at the time these dreams were coming true, she was killed in a tragic accident,” he said.
Some of her works are featured in renowned global publications including AFP, the Financial Times and New York Times.
She had covered elections, demonstrations, protests, sports and fashion events.
During a memorial service on March 11 at Dancing Cup, in Bugolobi, Mr Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, eulogised the deceased as an amazing person who made friends with so many people.
“I met her through so many interviews we had and amid those interviews were lots of conversations and jokes. She was ‘positive vibes’, a good person who became my friend like so many of you (at the service). We shall miss her,” Mr Kyagulanyi said.
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Ms Rachel Mabala, a journalist with Daily Monitor, said Sumy would show concern for other colleagues during hectic work deployments.
“Whenever she was taking pictures in riots and saw you, she would greet and hug you before returning back to her work. She was just fun. If she entered a place, the room lit it up. She would walk in dancing and greeting people,” Ms Mabala recounts.
Ms Tina Smole, a video journalist with AFP in Uganda, said Sumy was not only lively but also courageous.
“She would always find stories of people who were on the edge. She fought for women and any other kinds of minorities and even during times of other people’s grief, challenges in life, she gave people the space to tell the story with respect and honour,” Ms Smole says.
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She adds: “Even people who were camera shy and did not want their pictures taken, after interacting with Sumy, they would let their guard down and be happy for their pictures to be taken. She had this special energy to open up and make friends.”
Friends also say Sumy’s sense of style stood out from her voluminous hair, the love for red lipstick and black outfits.
Arrangements are still being made to fly her body out of the country to Switzerland where her mother lives.
