Reza: Pashtun Tribal Zone

Pashtun Tribal Zone, Afghanistan

With eyes that seem older than her years, this Afghan girl lives near Tora Bora, once home to Osama bin Laden. High in the mountains, the Pashtun tribal region offers many trails that lead to Pakistan. The Pashtun have never recognized the formal border cut through their territory, the 'Durand line' drawn by the British diplomat Sir Henry Mortimer Durand in 1893 to separate British India from Afghanistan, and later used as the basis for the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Reference: Reza.

Piercing green eyes, careless eye makeup, and face propped up like so, all of which make this Afghan girl curiously seem as if she were modeling.  She must've had a cold, and she must not have had anyone to wipe the sniffle from her face.
 

Reza: Village of Botkhak

Village of Botkhak

They were shadows, they were men, they were mountain warriors against an iron invader. Afghanistan was still reeling from the shock caused by the invasion of the Russian Army supported by the puppet Afghan Government. The entire country, burning and bleeding, seemed to remain prostrate, mourning its dead. However, a resistance movement was quietly building. Rising against the 100,000 Russian soldiers, a young Commander named Massoud walked from village to village and gathered a hundred men who, according to him, would defeat the invader. At the time I was working for Time in New York and Sipa Press in Paris. I wanted to measure the ability of that immature resistance. Despite the dangers of such an expedition, with Russians stalking any author of visual proof of their destruction, I followed a group of 53 mujahidin as they launched a large-scale attack on the city of Kabul on May 14, 1983. That masterstroke on the part of the Afghan resistance induced an impact wave. The countdown to the end of the occupation in Afghanistan was ticking. I captured this image in the morning of the attack.

Reference: Reza.

Shadow warriors, cast again the bright of day and absent of color and features, stand calmly, I suppose, as if waiting for a bus to take them to work.
 

Reza: Refugee

Refugee, Afghanistan

'Your house, your country, your story are within you if you let them enter. Wherever you are they follow you,' he told me. Then with a sigh, his eyes gazing at the Afghan mountains, he admitted that he would not be able to survive without seeing his land every day. He had fled the war, leaving his village and his past behind, and had settled with his loved-ones not far from the border. He had waved the caravan to stop in this place. He said he would go no further, that they would make camp, and his decision was final. Nobody dared contradict the elder, the wise man, and life was organized accordingly. He spent his days reading the Koran or poetry.

Reference: Reza.

I can only imagine the arduous journey and pervasive uncertainty that refugees face.  This wise, elderly man apparently would have neither of this, and staked out his comfort and mooring.
 

Heartbreak that is Africa for Migrants (3)

In words or images, music or numbers, no matter.  It is a tragedy that becomes more stark, even as humanity paints the picture more creatively and analytically.
 

Heartbreak that is Africa for Migrants (2)

Quentin Sommerville looks around a crowded migrant detention centre in Misrata. As many as 400 migrants are believed to have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea as their boat capsized off the Libyan coast. Many of the migrants who try to reach European shores first have to get to Libya. Once there, many are detained by the local authorities and end up being held for months in often squalid conditions.

With all due respect to Henry David Thoreau, The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation certainly doesn't apply to these African men.  For their desperation may be far from quiet.
 

Heartbreak that is Africa for Migrants (1)

Many migrants leave Africa in search of a better life in Europe; hundreds risk their lives on dangerous boats in rough seas.  Middle East correspondent Quentin Sommerville spoke to some men in the port of Misrata who were willing to put their lives at risk for a new start.

You can say "Europe is better than Africa..." We have tried a lot in Libya here; nothing can succeed.

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