Chingiz Mustafayev

My hero's name is Chingiz Mustafayev. And he is not just my hero, he is the hero of our Republic, the hero of thousands of hearts. Chingiz Mustafayev (1960-1992) was one of Azerbaijan's most noted journalists, even though the corpus of his work spans less than a year. With no formal journalistic training, he created a video anthology of the Karabakh war - an incalculable contribution documenting the brutality of a war that ultimately snuffed out his own life.

Most Azerbaijanis think of Chingiz Mustafayev, as the man behind the TV camera, who dared to film the Karabakh town of Khojali the morning after it was savagely attacked in February 1992. Chingiz' footage taken from an army helicopter showed hundreds of dead bodies strewn across snow-covered fields - innocent victims who had tried to run away from the surprise attack. Azerbaijan's official media had covered up the fact that the town had been wiped out and Armenians had ruthlessly slaughtered women, children and the elderly. But with Chingiz' film, the evidence was irrefutable. There had been a full-scale massacre. In the course of eight months, Chingiz shot 18 documentaries about the war in Karabakh, leaving behind a substantial historical archive.

Today, everybody remembers him for his camera work, but there was really much more to him than that. Chingiz followed the beat of a different drummer throughout his entire life and was passionate about everything he did. In the end, he risked everything to expose the truth.

Before long, Chingiz became ABC News' Azerbaijan correspondent. In journalism, this was an incredible leap to get involved on an international level so quickly.

Some of his films are classic. For instance, Chingiz once followed a soldier to the front. Two days later, the soldier was wounded and taken to the hospital, but the doctors couldn't save his life and he died. Chingiz captured all of this on camera. The footage ends with him interviewing the soldier's grieving mother.

Chingiz was hit by shrapnel June 15 while filming fighting between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Nagorno-Karabakh. He received no medical attention and bled to death in the back of an armored vehicle. A splinter from the shell had severed one of his major arteries. The soldiers erroneously removed the shell and the blood gushed out. There was no doctor around so they had to rush him to Agdam, 20 kilometers away. Chingiz was still alive when they arrived at the hospital but as they lifted him onto the operating table, his heart stopped. He was 31.

These days we need Chingiz more than he needs us. People don't believe that he was just an ordinary guy, but he really was. Ordinary people need to know that they, too, can become heroes and make a real difference in the world.