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The magazine of the art-form of the photo-essay “A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine.  Fabulous!” Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film & documentary maker
March 2015 back issue
War Affected Children
Part II
Photographer: Jo Harrison This is my second favorite toy, ‘Foo’. She sleeps with me at night and I cover her like sheis my own daughter. ” Aleh and her family fled in the first days of the war and took shelter in a nearby warehouse.  During the ceasefire, they returned to their largely destroyed home and are now sleeping in the bathroom, which isone of the only rooms left in the house. Gaza.
Photographer: Jo Harrison Children sleeping on mattresses taking refuge in a science lab, at a school in Jabalia.
Photographer: Marion Lise Normand 10 year old Mahmoud Al Nassar plays broken guitar in rubble of his home. Gaza.
Photographer: Marion Lise Normand “I have six children. My husband used to own a shop, repairing and selling motorbikes. Before the war our lives were very happy. We were a family of farmers living on the border area and we had a good business. In the morning, a few days after war broke out, my family and I were woken by the smell of gas. We could not breathe. Frantically, we ran around the house, trying to find water and blankets to cover our mouths with to take the smell of the gas away. Within 30 minutes, our house was being shelled. I ran with my children with no shoes on my feet. I was in agony running through the streets. My feet were cut in the rubble and bled as I ran. I tried to flag a passing ambulance to get a lift, but the medics were tending to those injured in the blasts. Meanwhile, my youngest daughter was begging me to return to our house to pick up her favorite toys. We stayed in a relative’s house nearby, but within a few days, we were under attack again and had to flee. Ourrelative’s home and farm were also destroyed including the olive trees, rabbits and goats they tended too. We fled to a school that was housing displaced people.  Each classroom shelters 100 people. My family and I are living there without mattresses or blankets and I have pain all over my body from sleeping on the hard floor. My children are traumatized, in particular my 14 year old daughter who is not speaking and can’t look at anyone in the eyes.” Gaza.
Photographer: Marion Lise Normand “Before this war, my husband owned a falafel shop. We owned a three-storey home where 22 of our family members lived. Both our home and falafel shop were entirely destroyed. It was morning when we fled. Soldiers began shooting at our home and so we ran to nearby Beit Hanoun hospital.  We were running barefoot and I without a headscarf, which  is not acceptable in our society. The hospital was packed full of families waiting to hear the outcome of their injured loved ones, and we were asked to leave.  I went to a nearby school in Jabalyia with my six daughters and three sons. Today, myself and members of my extended family are staying in the school science lab room together with 80 other people. The school has only a handful of bathrooms and no showers. The children have a high fever and one of my daughters has scabies. We have no food. No water. No clothes. Nothing.UNRWA is providing food once per day but unfortunately this is not enough. With the ActionAid coupon I will be able to buy blankets and kitchen equipment such as plates and cutlery, as well as food and a gas cooker to make meals with. The ActionAid voucher is good because it does not limit you to only buying one thing. There are many things we need now as we have lost everything.” Gaza.
Photographer: Lorenzo Tugnoli Freshta helps her family to move from their old house to the new one. Freshta’s family was one of the hundreds of families that live in caves dig up in the mountains near the city of Bamyan. She still has a big scar on her left leg caused by an infection related to the unhealthy living conditions, now it’s healing. Last year a team of photographers from ActionAid came to document the poor conditions of the life of Freshta’s family, and this is how she found a sponsor in England. ActionAid’s team helped Freshta’s family to find a new house and the sponsor covered the expenses for the purchase and for the medical expenses to cure Freshta’s leg. Freshta and her family started moving one week ago to their new house on top of a hill not far from the cave where they used to live. Window glass and a new stove lie in a corner waiting to be installed; the last touches to complete the house. Her mum Gulanda is proud to let me in the house and show me the freshly painted white walls. A big window gives a beautiful view of the valley and a lot of light to the room.
Photographer: Lorenzo Tugnoli Zakia, 7, sits with her family in their one-room dark house. Bamyan province of Afghanistan. Zakia’s father died of respiratory infection last year. Zakia and all her brothers and sisters stopped going to school shortly after their father died. They help in the house, look after the animals and collect wood for the winter. Now they live crammed in a small room where they eat, sleep and live together. The room is part of a house that was left vacant by a family in the village that immigrated to Iran. They allowed Zakia’s family to stay while they are away. Zakia helps to care of the two sheep owned by the family, in the winter they don’t produce milk so even this source of food is missing. Her mother Zainab is 45 years old and cannot work (women do not usually work outside the household in rural Afghanistan).  Her brother Shamsullah is 15 and he works sporadically for other farmers in the village. He is the sole breadwinner for this family of seven. Zainab (Zakia’s mother) “Most time we don’t have food, we live out of the charity of the other families in the village”.
Photographer: Lorenzo Tugnoli Zakia says  “When I wake up I help my mum with the fire and then I take the animals to the mountain”. I ask her about what she eats for breakfast or lunch and the answer is always the same “bread, sometimes tea.  I liked going to school, I liked the books and the pens, I would like to become a teacher, I would like to teach math”. For now she can’t read or write or count. “I don’t have friends.” Zakia spends most of her time with her mum and sisters. “I like to help my mum.” Zakia takes me to see her sheep, it is already snowing in her village in early October, she says “I don’t like the snow.”
Photographer: Lorenzo Tugnoli Zakia stands outside her house with some of the sheep she takes care of. Bamyan province of Afghanistan.
Photographer: Lorenzo Tugnoli Zakia stands outside her house with some of the sheep she takes care of. Bamyan province of Afghanistan.
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