Arriving in Iraq in the Spring of 2006, I found a world unlike anything I’d seen before. Roads were in ruin, electricity was available for only minutes at a time, antiquated sewerage and waste disposal systems seeped into water supplies causing disease and the under-equipped hospitals struggled to cope. Unemployment was at an all time high, instead of being educated, large amount of children were in the labor market as their families need all the help they can getting by, refugee camps are full to bursting, IDPs (internally displaced people) from the time of Saddam’s rule were being continually joined by those forced from their homes by the continuing “war on terror.” Add to this the widespread fear caused by indiscriminate insurgents attacks, the ever present threat of kidnapping, sporadic sectarian violence, the escalating crime rate and the fact that any physical attempts at rebuilding Iraq were being seriously hampered by the fact that Iraq is scattered with landmines that will take an estimated 100 years to clear and then you start to get a bit of an idea of what life is like for the ordinary Iraqi citizen. It’s not that great for the people from abroad having to work there either. The military and NGO groups had some form of protection, but most people don’t know about the foreign workers brought in by the draw of big bucks. The disabled Iraqi electrical systems were being repaired by workers from India. They had no protection, they lived in tenst beneath the pylons they were working on, they had no protection and every now and again someone would find them slaughtered. More would be sent to replace them and the cycle continued.
Today I went through some of the photos I took there, I had selected a few for publications and kept them together, but today I looked at shots that hadn’t made the cut and it made me remember a lot about the life on the streets there. Here are a few of them:
People threw their house waste out into a designated area of town and someone would shovel it into a skip.
The waste is dumped out of town, sometimes in landfills, sometimes next to rivers. Animals eat the waste. The trash pile overflows and the river gets polluted, the cows get sick.
In the backstreets open sewers flow uncovered. Kids play there, people step over them going about their daily business.
A teenage boy at a makeshift book store. Education was barely existent, to get any education people had to teach their own children with second hand books from stores like this.
A displaced woman begging on the streets.
The local black market. You can get anything you want here. If it isn’t available, someone will steal it for you.
Children on the streets.
Wrecked vehicles.
Indian electrical workers in town to get supplies.
Iraqi fashion.
16 Comments
Some incredible and dramatic shots! That mannequin in the last one is really quite disturbing. Excellent composition! Thanks for the information as well.
Thanks for covering this. Everywhere there are stories covering war but seldom do they cover the civilian and human aspect of war. Civilians suffer the most and get the least amount of attention. It’s good to see your focusing on the human element of the story. There should be more of this. We’d understand the world better.
Paule
http://www.paulepictures.com
http://www.paulepictures.com/blog
More wonderful and poignant images. Didn`t know about the existance or plight of people working there like the Indian electricians, that`s a story in itself.
Damon
Uuuuf!!!!! my friend, tremendous photographies, an impressive, Brave news article
Warm greetings
Stunning shots, amazing job, and fantastic report. Thanks for sharing.
Powerful documentary !
Thank you for sharing the story.
Powerful images. How long were you there?
Thanks for the interest everyone.
Paule, as you say the civilians suffer the most in war and they are most often forgotten. It’s like the atomic bomb and Tokyo fire bombing survivors you photographed, some hadn’t even told their own families what happened, but your photos keep their part in the history of mankind alive.
Damon, the Indian electrical workers story would be a great piece. I did look into getting access to them, but nothing came of it. Just one lonely image snapped on the street one day. A shame.
6ft5, I was there for just under a month in Spring 2006. All of February basically, with 2 or 3 days in Jordan at the start and finish.
A picture is better than a thousand words… this great documentary of yours is more powerful than ten thousand words! And I found it so hard to utter a single word after seeing this…
Definitely an amazing photo journalistic article and images. Excellent work, the images are so very thought provocative. Very impressive work.
Nice atmosphere in the first pic!
I discovered your page with this report, geez i feel each time as moved and interested by your images & words, many thanks for sharing this whole, plus the extra shots not selected tell so much of the sublines of the story too it’s a luck to be able to see them, another side of the big reality anyway…
Great documentary shots, fantastic work!
Great story Will,
Brilliant photojournalism quality.
See ya!!!
;o)
It really is amazing that people can still smile after all they’ve been through. Profound and powerful images.