Barnaby Phillips is Director of Communications for the Elephant Protection Initiative, working to shut down the ivory trade and save Africa's elephants. Previously, he worked as a television and radio correspondent. He was a Senior Correspondent for Al Jazeera English, the 24-hour international television news channel based in Doha in Qatar, and owned by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network. He was based in the Greek capital of Athens, and later moved to Al Jazeera's main European base in London. He was formerly with the BBC for 15 years and from 2001 was its Southern Africa Correspondent. He has extensive experience in several continents, having reported on major news stories since the early 1990s. His first book, Another Man's War, was published in September 2014. His second book, 'Loot; Britain and the Benin Bronzes' will be published in spring 2021.
Early life
Phillips spent much of his early childhood in Kenya in East Africa, and later lived in Switzerland.
Phillips has worked extensively in the Middle East, West Africa, Asia and Europe and has covered major stories such as the AIDS epidemic, the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, the war in Liberia and the 2002 Southern African food crises, the war in Iraq, the South Asian tsunami, the Greek debt crisis and the Brexit referendum. Phillips joined the BBC's African service in 1991, remaining until 1993. He then became the BBC's stringer in Mozambique, where he learned Portuguese. In 1997 he was based in Angola for most of the year. In 1998, he became the BBC's Nigeria Correspondent, based in Lagos, Nigeria, and in 2001 was appointed Southern Africa Correspondent. Whilst at the BBC, he worked extensively in the Middle East, West Africa and Asia, and has covered major stories such as the AIDS epidemic, the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, the wars in Liberia and Iraq, the 2002 Southern African food crises, and the South Asian tsunami. He joined Al-Jazeera in 2006 and became its Europe Correspondent, based in the network's then second-largest bureau, in Athens. He has also reported from the Balkans and from regions outside Europe, such as the Turkish/Iraq border, and on the general elections in the United States and India. He moved to London in December 2010, after Al Jazeera closed its Athens bureau, to continue reporting on European news stories. In 2011, Phillips directed and presented the documentary "Burma Boy", for Al Jazeera's Correspondent series. The documentary, tracing the extraordinary life of a Nigerian veteran of a Burma campaign, Isaac Fadoyebo, won a CINE Golden Eagle Award in 2012. His book Another Man's War, published in 2014, tells the same story, and also examines the British legacy in Nigeria and Burma. It tells the dramatic story of the survival of Isaac Fadoyebo, a Nigerian soldier who was part of the forgotten African army that fought in Burma for the British in the Second World War. Another Man's War was described by the Daily Telegraph as a "profoundly moving" book that "ranks alongside such classics of wartime literature as The Great Escape and Darkness Be My Friend". The Spectator said it was "an extraordinary story, very well told". NPR in the United States described it as "riveting" and chose it as "one of the Best Books of 2014"'. The Times Literary Supplement said it was "impressive....a gripping military history which brings African witnesses to the dying days of the British Empire out of the shadows". Another Man's War came out in paperback in June 2015. The Mail on Sunday chose it as 'a paperback of the week' and described it as a "remarkable tale...spellbinding". The Guardian described it as a 'lucid, exquisitely detailed' book. Most recently, Phillips reported from the Central African Republic and Ukraine. He also played a prominent role in the reporting of the January 2015 Paris attacks, and of the Greek debt crisis. In 2016, Phillips was appointed Al Jazeera's UK Correspondent, and led the coverage of the June 2016 Brexit referendum. He left Al Jazeera in 2018, to take up the post of Director of Communications with the Elephant Protection Initiative.
