“It’s calm now, but be ready to leave at any time,” come the instructions over the car radio. We’re driving east, through heavy snow, towards the mining settlement of Zolote 3, on the frontline of east Ukraine’s nearly 6-year old conflict. The so-called ‘frozen conflict’ in Europe’s backyard is still active and for the… Read more →←
Author: Toby Fricker
The drive alongside lake Lanao is idyllic. Surrounded on one side by the lush greenery of the southern Philippine island of Mindanao and on the other by the vast ocean-like expanse that forms the largest lake on the island. But the horror of what took place alongside the lake’s northern shores hits you when you enter the devastated… Read more →←
“I feel good about finishing my exams, a feeling of success that a difficult time has passed,” Mohammad tells me in the schoolyard. The 18-year old from Gaza City just walked out of his final Tawjihi exam and with it, the end of his school years. Mohammad’s results will help determine his future but just reaching this point is a… Read more →←
Belqees always dreamt of going to school. “My friends would come back to the village and talk about school, what they had been doing,” the 16-year old says. “I felt like, they are my friends, why am I behind?” At her home, in a remote village in Daykundi, a province in Afghanistan’s central highlands, Belqees explains how she… Read more →←
“I was a little girl when I came from Syria, I was 11 years old and just thinking about toys; now I have grown up,” says Omaima, as the 16 year old reflects on her time in Za’atari, nearly one third of her life. “I used to think that when I got to the camp it would be like a picnic, like a garden to play with my friends. Then I… Read more →←
“I have three kids whom I have to put on their feet; I want them to live happily and to prosper in their future,” Andrii, 35, tells me. It’s a goal that most parents share, but for Andrii one that became a lot tougher when Ukraine’s conflict escalated in mid-2014. “Our children were frightened a lot; they kept hiding under the… Read more →←
“My cats eyes were so wide, he was also very afraid,” Diana tells us matter of factly. The 10-year-old is explaining what happened during a recent day of intense shelling in Avdiivka, her hometown on the frontline of east Ukraine’s more than three-year-old conflict. This is where you hear first-hand the violence that continues… Read more →←
“I will return to my home, love will return,” Ansam’s melodic voice reverberates around a packed Damascus opera house. The audience is transfixed by the 10-year-old’s singing and the harmony of the forty-strong children’s choir who accompany her. Born blind, Ansam lives in Syria’s capital after being displaced by fighting… Read more →←
The soldiers at the fifth military checkpoint of the morning wave us on. We finally enter Hranitne. The village lies sandwiched between the Ukrainian military on one side and armed groups of the Donetsk de-facto authorities, across a small bridge. This is the frontline of Ukraine’s eastern conflict and it’s 16-year-old Dasha’s… Read more →←
