Christopher’s Life and Work

Chris loved stories. As a child, he loved telling them, hearing them and reading them. As a journalist, he sought to write some of the world’s untold stories. He was uncompromising in his search for truth. He looked for answers even when personal risk was required. 

Chris grew up in a comfortable suburb outside Philadelphia but he didn’t embrace the values and coziness of the lifestyle. He was more interested in those who did not have the comforts and security that people around him took for granted. He did not like the complacency of  middle class life. He wanted to know about people who did not have those privileges. Chris was drawn to regions of the world where security, democratic norms, the rule of law, and a functional state were not assumed. He was interested in places where democracy was nascent or seriously challenged. Chris was fascinated by the willingness of people to challenge corrupt governments, encroachments to their land, their families and their nation. 

While working on a degree in European history, an Oxford professor suggested that Chris might be more interested in seeing history being made rather than reading about it in dusty tomes. He spent spring break 2014 in the east of Ukraine, post-Maidan, where political turmoil was unfolding. Profoundly influenced by the events taking place in the east, he became fascinated by the ensuing struggle and the motivations of opposing forces. Upon completion of his Master’s degree, he returned to Ukraine to report on the war  in the Donbas region as a freelance journalist.

In Ukraine, Chris began to see conflict as a complex place where history, religion, language, culture, ideologies and a vision for the future were intertwined.  He sought to unravel and reveal those many complexities.  Chris became an expert on the nuances of the political situation in Ukraine, questioning mainstream assumptions and political and military narratives.  In the three years he lived in Ukraine, he gained a deep affection for the people and country, reporting on the faultlines and stresses there.  Kyiv became Chris’ adopted home.   

In August 2017, he embarked on a new challenge. Chris had always been fascinated by the African continent, he wrote two theses in his undergrad and graduate programs about the relationship of colonists to the indigenous people of Kenya. Chris traveled to South Sudan to cover the under-reported civil war there, embedding with the SPLA-IO, a rebel faction attempting to overthrow the government in Juba. He wanted to know who these rebels were, why they fought and who they left behind to live in this community of soldiers. These rebels, aged eight to 80, needed to accept and trust him. He lived as they did, slept alongside the rebels in mud huts, ate community meals and shared their water. Chris sacrificed comfort, suspended judgment, and simply observed. He immersed himself fully. 

He had been with the soldiers for more than three weeks, listening to the stories of their lives, their losses, motivations and fears, before he was targeted by government forces in a skirmish in Kaya, South Sudan. Christopher was killed in South Sudan on 26 August, 2017. Up until the end of his short life, Chris was committed to telling the stories of lives in under-reported corners of the world.