Reporting and Verification in the Global South with Eman El-Sherbiny from Bellingcat
In the opening episode of The Intelligence Spotlight, we sat down with Eman, a digital investigator with Bellingcat, whose work has appeared in The Times, The Independent, and New Lines Magazine. With a focus on conflicts in the Global South, Eman brings both depth and lived insight into the world of open-source intelligence, known as OSINT.
There’s no formal university degree for open-source intelligence. Most come into the field through a mix of journalism, activism, or even pure curiosity. Eman’s path began in local Egyptian newsrooms before shifting to financial investigations. “It was a learning process,” she recalls. Press freedom constraints in Egypt forced her to seek alternative data sources, leading her to the world of OSINT—though, at the time, she didn’t yet have a name for it.
Between 2018 and 2019, she decided to fully commit. The turning point was her role with the Sudanese Archive, in partnership with UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center. It was here that she learned to apply structured protocols to digital investigations. Sudan, in the midst of a revolution, was ripe with citizen-generated footage. Social media became a tool of resistance, but also a risk.
“In Darfur, phones were destroyed on sight,” she said, describing how the Rapid Support Forces would target civilians capturing footage. Lack of access to smartphones, electricity, or stable internet created further gaps. This mirrors similar challenges in Afghanistan, where civilians fear recording evidence due to potential repercussions from the Taliban. “People don’t record. They just watch, then recount later. It makes verification incredibly difficult.”
Eman explained how visual evidence must be treated with caution—especially when releasing it could expose individuals. “Sometimes, the footage is so unique that it can be traced back to the person who took it.”
One of her recent investigations focused on the shooting of journalist Catherine Wanjeri Kariuki in Nakuru, Kenya, during protests in July 2023. Catherine, wearing a press vest, was standing peacefully with other journalists when she was shot with a rubber bullet from close range.
“There were no protests happening at that moment,” Eman said. “The scene was calm, but the police car had driven back and forth, seemingly performing reconnaissance.” While the identity of the officer remains unknown, Bellingcat’s work clearly placed the responsibility on Kenyan police. A rubber bullet fired at such close proximity left Catherine with three internal wounds requiring surgery.
Eman and her team used a mix of CCTV footage, social media posts, and street view to geolocate the incident. The evidence was mapped to demonstrate a pattern of violence in Nakuru, including police storming a nearby church. Despite the footage, Kenyan authorities remain silent. “Accountability is slow, especially in the Global South. But documentation builds pressure over time.”
Asked how OSINT can be more inclusive, Eman highlighted the need to involve local experts. Many parts of the Global South lack updated satellite imagery or digital infrastructure. “It’s frustrating when you can’t even verify a basic location. That’s why we need local knowledge—it fills in what the tools can’t.”
When training new investigators, she recommends mastering PeakVisor, a tool that uses mountain ridges for geolocation. “It’s precise. We once used it to identify a ship near Yemen using just the silhouette of an island in the background.”
Her final advice? “Don’t wait to master everything. Jump into a tool, break it, learn what works. And don’t expect quick wins—OSINT takes time.”
As Eman reminds us, the power of open-source intelligence lies not just in exposing the truth, but in doing so ethically, carefully, and with the communities it represents at the centre.
