Iona Craig

Iona Craig (born 1976) is a British-Irish freelance journalist. In 2015, she was recognized for her work as a Yemen correspondent at The Times of London, for which she was the recipient of the 2014 Martha Gellhorn prize.

Craig was raised in Gloucestershire, United Kingdom, and attended City University in London. Previous to her study and work as a journalist, Iona was a horse trainer and jockey.

As a BBC intern, Craig studied Arabic, and moved to Sana’a, Yemen in 2010 to become the managing editor of the Yemen Times. The last accredited Western journalist in the country, she left in 2014 and was asked not to return by the government of Yemen. Since then, she has snuck back into the country to report on conflicts and human rights abuses.

Her work has appeared in The Times, The Sunday Times, The Irish Times, USA Today, Al Jazeera America, TIME, Foreign Policy, The Los Angeles Times, Global Post, Index on Censorship, The Intercept, and VICE.

Craig received the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in 2014. Judges wrote of her work: “Often alone, and risking her life, Iona has for almost four years given voice to the ordinary people of Yemen, especially the families of the victims of America’s ‘war on terror’."