Bombs to Coffee

Country:

Indonesia

Author:

Ana P. Santos
2014 Persephone Miel Fellow

A 10-year old girl holds up her drawing of a home in a government run shelter. The girl is one of the surviving members of the families that carried out a string of ISIS-inspired suicide attacks in the city of Surabaya in May 2018. Image by Jurnasyanto Sukarno. Indonesia, 2018.

English

What happens to the children of suicide bombers and those injured in attacks?

Ana P. Santos
2014 Persephone Miel Fellow

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Muhammad In’am Amin’s brother was a suicide bomber. Wildan blew himself up in Iraq in 2007. He was only 19. Amin has always regretted not being able to save him. But after the loss, Amin now hopes to sway others in Indonesia from the path of violent extremism. He’s now teaching former militants to make coffee instead of bombs. Image by Ana P. Santos. Indonesia, 2019.

Like many Muslim countries, Indonesia is struggling to find way to de-radicalize and reintegrate citizens who joined extremist groups and later had second thoughts. In one Indonesian city, Pulitzer Center grantee Ana Santos talks with Muhammad Inam Amin, a coffee shop owner whose brother joined an Islamist group and become a suicide bomber in Iraq. Amin cooperates with local authorities to give former radicals jobs in his coffee shop. Giving these young men jobs, he says, gives them a a support group and a sense of purpose.