Sophie Neiman

Kampala, Uganda

Reporter and Photojournalist at Freelance

Award winning journalist | Covering conflict and human rights | Trying to keep print reporting alive | She/Her |

Articles

Heroin users fall into addiction as US aid freeze hits rehab clinics

1 month ago | telegraph.co.uk | Sophie Neiman

Recovering addicts are left to face their demons and heroin withdrawal alone after treatment programmes are stoppedOn January 25, as the sun rose over a glistening Lake Victoria, hundreds of recovering heroin addicts dutifully arrived at a treatment clinic on the outskirts of the Ugandan capital of Kampala. They had each come to receive a small cup of methadone, the synthetic opioid used to treat withdrawal symptoms and keep former addicts functioning and stable.
In Congo, a reporter returns to a city transformed by war

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Sophie Neiman

When I arrive in the Congolese city of Goma in March, I present myself to officials from M23. The Rwandan-backed rebel group has captured this city of 1 million two months earlier, leaving the streets littered with bodies. “You are just a young girl,” one of the higher-ups says, looking me over. “Aren’t you afraid to be in a war zone?” We are sitting on the veranda of a hotel overlooking Lake Kivu. Waves lap the concrete below, as if to punctate his words. I smile sweetly. Let them think I am naive.
Near war’s front lines, a Congolese village hesitantly rebuilds

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Sophie Neiman

When Jeremie Lumoo fled his home in the eastern Congolese village of Kimoka last year, he wondered if he’d ever see it again. Sitting in his tent in a displacement camp in the nearby city of Goma, he envisioned himself home in his favorite chair, listening to rumba music on the radio. He was dreaming of returning in peacetime. Instead, in February, a rebel group called M23 occupied Goma and evicted the tens of thousands of displaced people living on its outskirts.
Rebels took eastern Congo’s largest city. Now they must run it.

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Sophie Neiman

It had been a while since Corneille Nangaa had an office job. The former Congolese civil servant spent much of the last two years in fatigues, as the head of a coalition of rebel groups fighting for control of the country’s east. But in January, M23, the most prominent of the militias in Mr. Nangaa’s Congo River Alliance, seized the regional capital of Goma, and he got a new gig: overseeing a city government.
The world looked away from Congo’s rape crisis. She did not.

2 months ago | csmonitor.com | Sophie Neiman

When a woman comes to Jeanne Nacatche Banyere after being raped, “Maman Jeanne” doesn’t start by asking about what happened. Instead, she draws the woman into a warm hug. If the woman wants to sit down, she sits down with her. If the woman wants to lie down, Ms. Banyere lies down, too. “I adapt to her,” says Ms. Banyere, who runs a women’s shelter here. “I wipe her tears. I show her love and affection.
the families scraping a living in Uganda's new gold rush

Mar 7, 2025 | telegraph.co.uk | Sophie Neiman |Simon Townsley

Maria Nakoru crouches at the bottom of a dirt hollow, one metre deep. She grips a metal pike as she strikes the walls, chasing glimmers of gold through the choking dust. In Uganda's northeastern Karamoja region, thousands of artisanal miners carve a fragile livelihood from the earth. Nearby, others labour in their own plots, surrounded by mounds of soil, like freshly dug graves. A breeze lifts the ochre hue of the parched dirt into the air.
New pipeline carrying Ugandan oil gets a mixed reception

Feb 28, 2025 | csmonitor.com | Sophie Neiman

Growing up in a fishing community on the cerulean shores of Uganda’s Lake Albert, Julius Tumwine listened to adults around him speak of oil with reverence. In 2006, some 6.5 billion barrels of it had been discovered beneath the lake’s surface, a vast deposit that stretched into the earth under the houses and cassava fields where Mr. Tumwine and his friends played. Their teachers told them to study hard, because oil meant opportunity.
Museveni Is Trying to Break Uganda’s Opposition Through the Courts

Nov 15, 2024 | yahoo.com | Sophie Neiman

KAMPALA, Uganda—Cheeks glazed with tears and her face a map of worry, Ugandan political dissident Olivia Lutaaya pled guilty to charges of “treachery,” or plotting against the government, along with 15 other co-defendants in a court hearing in October 2024. The group had been in jail for nearly four years, always swearing their innocence.
Museveni Is Trying to Break Uganda’s Opposition Through the Courts

Nov 15, 2024 | worldpoliticsreview.com | Sophie Neiman

KAMPALA, Uganda—Cheeks glazed with tears and her face a map of worry, Ugandan political dissident Olivia Lutaaya pled guilty to charges of “treachery,” or plotting against the government, along with 15 other co-defendants in a court hearing in October 2024. The group had been in jail for nearly four years, always swearing their innocence.
Women's agency in the DRC war

Nov 4, 2024 | newint.org | Sophie Neiman

The sharp sound of glass breaking under a rubber boot echoes over the rooftop like the crack of gunfire, as Thérèse Ndarubyariye leans forward in her chair. Her mouth is set in a thin, determined line and she speaks in a voice no louder than a whisper. Ndarubyariye, who is using a pseudo-nym for her protection, is a soldier with the Alliance of Patriots for a Free and Sovereign Congo (APCLS), just one of the 120 armed groups battling in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).