Arwa Damon is CNN's Jakarta-based correspondent covering stories from Indonesia and the surrounding region. She is an award-winning journalist and also one of the network's Iraq specialists and continues to report from Baghdad on assignment throughout the year.
She has recently reported on Indonesia’s parliamentary elections, measures to prevent the spread of the H1N1 flu virus, and from Laos on the arrest of the pregnant British woman imprisoned for drug trafficking. She has also visited the forests of central Indonesia for the special documentary “Sumatra: Paradise Lost?”, to uncover issues including deforestation and the threats of extinction that man species face.
Prior to Jakarta, Damon was based in Baghdad and reported on landmark stories including the trial and execution of Saddam Hussein and two of his co-defendants, the Iraq elections and Iraq’s Constitutional Referendum vote. Notably she covered the story of Youssif, a five-year-old Iraqi boy horribly burnt in a brutal and deliberate attack. Her report drew one of the biggest responses to a non-breaking news story in the history of CNN.com that, through the network's Impact Your World initiative, allowed him to receive medical treatment in the United States. More recently, she was back to report for the powerful documentary “lnside Iraq: Living with the enemy” that looked at an Iraq traumatized by its recent history, seeking to understand the horrors of what millions lived through and putting names to the nameless victims.
Damon was also the first television reporter allowed inside the Khamiya women’s prison and reported on the desperate situation of the women behind bars. Her exclusive coverage included the offensive to win back Baghdad’s notorious Haifa Street from Sunni extremists, while she also chronicled the U.S. Army's battle in Najaf against the Mehdi Army and the battles to retake Samarra and Fallujah.
Before joining CNN Damon spent three years covering Iraq and the Middle East as a freelance producer for various news organizations including Feature Story News (PBS) and CNN.
Damon graduated with honors from Skidmore College in New York with a double major in French and Biology and a minor in International affairs. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts but spent most of her childhood in Morocco and Turkey. She is fluent in Arabic, French and Turkish.
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