VANESSA VICK PHOTOGRAPHY

AFRICA

  • Hawe Abakar Adam fled her home to a refugee camp in Chad after loosing two of her sons and a brother when Sudanese Government planes bombed her village in Darfur and the Janjaweed attacked.
  • Bredjing is a refugee camp in Chad where 40,000 Sudanese have fled the fighting in Darfur in Sudan. The violence is part of a broader conflict that began between rebel forces and the Sudanese Government, which has exploited ethnic tensions in the region. More than one million people have fled to refugee camps in Sudan and Chad.
  • The Ogaden National Liberation Front began armed resistance against the government of Ethiopia creating a separatist war pitting impoverished nomads against one of the biggest armies in Africa. 2007
  • The government’s heavy paramilitary response to the insurgency has created “a humanitarian crisis throughout the Ogaden.
  • Reports of forced evictions and human rights abuses in the vicinity of oil and gas fields is creating a new wave of grievances against the government in local communities.
  • Friends of Halima Kada, 13 years old help her to prepare for her marriage. All of the girls are 12 years old and have already been promised for marriage within the next year. Maradi, Niger.
  • The young girls begin the seven day ceremony by painting Kada with henna, preparing food, dancing and spending the day with her.
  • Despite having contributed almost no carbon emissions the Karamojong in Moroto, Uganda are some of the first to feel the effects of climate change. The rainfall has become erratic and the region is becoming drier causing chronic food insecurity.
  • Men from the Matheniko tribe are initiated in Moroto, Uganda. Each must bring a bull to slaughter for the ceremony. Having performed this ceremony their stature and respect in the community will increase. Moroto, Uganda.
  • Lokol makes a traditional grass thatched hut for her husband to celebrate with his friends. It is tradition for the bride to make the hut for their wedding night. Lokol is about to celebrate her dowry ceremony in the Matheniko village of Nabokat in Moroto, Uganda.
  • In Moroto the Topeth tribe has a kraal where they keep their animals so that they are closer to grazing areas. The Karamajong culture and way of life like many indigenous cultures is rapidly changing. Uganda
  • Women celebrate during a dowry ceremony. Wedding ceremonies are one of the most important celebrations in Karamajong culture and cannot take place unless the groom has enough cows and gifts to satisfy the family of the bride. Moroto, Uganda.
  • Babas Emmanuel was born infected with HIV. He doesn’t remember his parents as they died when he was a young boy. At the age of fifteen the disease has ravaged his body. A non-governmental organization stepped in to offer assistance paying for his anti-retrovirals and his medical bills at an AIDS clinic in Kampala, Uganda.
  • Rebecca Nakabezi suffers from AIDS. In the advanced stages of the disease she sometimes suffers from dementia causing her to talk incessantly or become abusive to her family despite their tireless efforts to care for her. Kampala, Uganda.
  • At the age of 20 Rebecca found herself widowed and with a young child who was also HIV positive. She has been primarily bedridden and unable to work for the past four years and relies on food assistance from The World Food Program. Kampala, Uganda.
  • Street children pick through the main garbage dump in Kigali looking for items to sell. Rwanda has about 6,000 street children, mostly in Kigali.
  • The genocide in Rwanda left thousands of children with no parents or family members to care for them. Barirwanda lives with his three siblings outside of Gikongoro, Rwanda.
  • Street children in Kigali often become addicted to sniffing glue. With so many children orphaned after the genocide many were left to fend for themselves. Rwanda.
  • Street children in Kigali search for scraps to survive in the city’s trash dump. Many street children are orphans of the genocide and have witnessed extreme violence. Rwanda.
  • Ayuro Teddy walked15 kilometers to Majengo Primary School in Soroti after her village was repeatedly attacked by the Lord’s Resistance Army. The rebels killed her husband and her brother when they were trying to flee forcing her entire village to evacuate. Uganda.
  • Formerly abducted child soldiers of the Lord’s Resistance Army wait at the edge of the compound before breaking an egg and entering to greet local chiefs who are waiting to conduct a cleansing ceremony. This ceremony is intended to rid the children of their past sins and drive away any evil they possess. Gulu, Uganda.
  • Nyeko Charles, 15, was held for three days before escaping from the Lord’s Resistance Army. it is estimated that the LRA has abducted over 40,000 children and forced them to become child soldiers. Gulu, Uganda.
  • Every night thousands of children pour into Kitgum and other northern Ugandan towns from surrounding areas, hoping to avoid abduction by the Lord’s Resistance Army. They sleep on verandas, in bus parks, on church grounds, and at local hospitals before returning home again the next morning. Uganda.
  • Children sleep at the bus park in Gulu. It is estimated that 40,000 children leave their villages every night to sleep at hospitals, churches, towns or wherever they feel more safe from abduction by the Lord’s Resistance Army. They are called night commuters. Uganda.
  • Women and children pour into Ambrosoli Memorial Hospital Kalongo hoping to avoid abduction by the Lord’s Resistance Army. The internally displaced people’s camp or protected camps as referred to by the Ugandan Government lies just on the other side of the chain link fence but security is so bad they come inside the hospital grounds by nightfall seeking protection. Uganda.
  • People settle down for the night at Ambrosoli Memorial Hospital Kalongo. In Pader District 100% of the population has been displaced and forced to move to camps or nearby towns because of violence caused by the Lord’s Resistance Army. Uganda.
  • Almost two million people have been forced to leave their homes in northern Uganda and live in internally displaced people’s camps. Before the war the majority of the people lived by farming now they rely on the World Food Program to survive. Pader, Uganda.
  • A family member mourns the death of Apoko who was killed by rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army. His wife and seven children went to sleep at Saint Joseph’s Mission in Kitgum, Apoko stayed behind sleeping in the bushes in case thieves came to take the families household possessions. His family returned to find him beaten him to death. There had been a group of Uganda People’s Defense Forces nearby but being outnumbered they fled leaving the civilian population unprotected. Uganda.
  • Survivors pick through the ruble after rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army attacked the village of Barlonyo in Lira killing over 250 people mostly by fire making it one of the worst massacres of the decades long war. Uganda.
  • The Lord’s Resistance Army is known throughout the world as one of the most brutal rebel groups in the world. When Aouch Anna was captured by rebels at her home they made her 3-year-old daughter watch while they sliced her lips off. The very next day Mary Aol was attacked and they also cut her lips. The two women met in the hospital and have been friends ever since. A team of Italian doctors later performed surgery on the women to minimize the mutilation. Gulu, Uganda.
  • Ikiror Sarah joined a civilian militia called the Arrow Group the day after she witnessed her brother being killed and another brother being abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army. No one has seen her younger brother since he was abducted and it is not known if he is still alive. Before her village was attacked she was studying to graduate from high school. Soroti, Uganda.
  • Rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army abducted Anywar Walter and his three brothers along with several hundred other people in Pajule, Northern Uganda. The rebels split the brothers into different groups and brought Walter to Sudan where he joined Joseph Kony’s group. While in Sudan his younger brother was killed in a battle with the Ugandan Army and he does not know what happened to his other brothers. Behind him is Ojok Charles who was abducted with his cousin who was also killed by the Ugandan Army. They are being held at the Army Child Protection Unit in Gulu after escaping from the rebels. Uganda.
  • Duculina Abalo is cared for by her husband Lino Ochia at Kitgum hospital. She was on her way to collect mangos with another man when Lord’s Resistance Army rebels attacked them leaving her with serious head injuries. The man has not been seen since the attack. Uganda.
  • Burned out buildings in Faradje, Democratic Republic of Congo. A large portion of the town was burned on Christmas day when Ugandan rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army brutally attacked and killed close to 100 people and abducting approximately 200. The LRA was forced out of Northern Uganda and has now destabilized a large region that includes parts of South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
  • Kadjuru was in her village in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo when fighting between armed groups broke out. Soldiers came into her house and shot and killed her husband then two men raped her. The DRC has been at civil war for over a decade, leaving 5 million dead and displacing millions. Another terrible result of this war is the widespread rape of women and young girls by all of the armed groups and now sexual assaults are on rise by civilians as well. Kivu, DRC.
  • Refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo flee the civil war with the rebel group M23. They are desperate to get on a Ugandan police truck at the border town of Bunagana that will carry them the remaining distance to the Nyakabanda transit site in Kisoro, Uganda. Most of these refugees will be resettled at Rwamwanja, Uganda after the UNHCR has registered them.
  • Klaus Thormahlen, president of Thormahlen Schweibtechnik AG, attends a Sunday church service in Kapoeta in southern Sudan. Mr. Thormahlen was leading a delegation of businessmen trying to put together a deal to build a 7 billion euro railroad project linking Gulu, Uganda to Juba, Sudan to Mombasa, Kenya. Southern Sudan is still trying to recover from 22 years of civil war. This church is one of the only permanent structures still standing in Kapoeta and is covered with bullet wholes. October 3, 2004. ©Vanessa Vick
  • South Sudan has one of the highest infant mortality rates in Africa. Decades of civil war and war with the Government of Sudan have left very little options for health care in the region. This woman is part of small percentage of women who deliver in a hospital with the assistance of medical professionals. Yei, South Sudan.
  • Prisoners are held in a regional jail in Yei, South Sudan.
  • Vieira Boas Muleba lost his wife when she became sick with cholera and died several days later. He is now left to care for their child alone. Cholera is treatable for a very small amount of money but the poor health system and poverty in Yei, South Sudan have left people vulnerable to cholera and other treatable diseases.
  • Lake Victoria in East Africa borders three countries and is one of the largest lakes in the world. Overfishing and climate change are rapidly threatening the health of the lake which millions of people depend on for survival. Tanzania.
  • Eddy Bilak is treated at Nyapea Hospital in Uganda for complications due to HIV/AIDS and TB. Eddy is in a program with BRAC which will monitor him when he is released to see if that he is in compliance with his drug treatment. Drug resistant strains of TB are a concern worldwide.
  • Namugali, 12 years, Numugali John, 11 years, Wameyo Geofery, 15 years, and Wameyo Bosco, 14 years, visit homes in their community hoping to get gifts on the day they are to be circumcised in Namakandwa Bukeka, Uganda. For the Bagisu, the dominant tribe in Eastern Uganda, circumcision is required for a young man to progress to adulthood. The boys are circumcised without anesthesia, if they move or cry out during the cutting they are viewed as a coward and shame their parents and ancestors and will never be viewed as an adult. Recent studies indicate that male circumcision can reduce HIV transmission by as much as 60 percent.
  • Almost 20,000 Kenyans displaced by ethnic violence live in a camp located in the showgrounds in Eldoret following the disputed Kenyan Presidential elections. Ethnic tensions exposed by elections in a country best known for tourism has prompted conflict that has killed 1,000, displaced 300,000 and been called {quote}ethnic cleansing{quote} by the United States and others. Kenya.
  • People displaced by ethnic violence following the Kenyan Presidential elections are bused to Saint Stephen’s Church in Kisumu, Kenya.
  • Teme Hospital in Port Harcourt Nigeria was opened by Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres to treat trauma patients. Over 50% of the patients treated are injured in road traffic accidents. The hospital is located in a very impoverished area of Port Harcourt and also receives a high number of victims of violence. Adam Amadu, 30, was struck by a car and broke his femor bone.
  • Mountains of rubbish are a common sight in Luanda. There is no organized waste collection for people to dispose of garbage. Without regular garbage collection waste is dumped in unofficial sites very close to or right inside densely populated areas. These rotting heaps become quagmires during the rainy season and are all too often the only playgrounds for children. Since February 2006, the Angolan capital of Luanda has been experiencing its worst ever cholera epidemic. Over 40,000 people have become sick and approximately 1,500 have died due to the epidemic. Angola.
  • Young girls fetch water in Kasantha, northern Malawi which has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world. Malawi recently passed a law banning child marriage, raising the minimum age to 18 in the southern African country where half of girls end up as child brides. Women rights campaigners hailed the move as {quote}a great day for Malawian girls{quote} and said the law would help boost development in one of the world's poorest countries.
  • Polio was thought to be on the verge of eradication but recovered in 2004 after officials of three northern Nigerian states stopped vaccinations because of rumors that the vaccine had become contaminated with the AIDS virus, or with pork products or hormones that would render Muslim women infertile. Polio is spread by fecal-oral contact, which makes densely populated areas with poor sanitation like Kano Nigeria at particularly high risk. Northern Nigeria currently has one of the highest number of polio cases in the world. Omar Aminu, 2, is a victim, despite having received the vaccine. Both of Aminu’s parents are also victims of polio. Kano, Nigeria.
  • In the village of Kwa-al, located in central Nigeria, 36% of the children tested positive for Schistosomiasis. The Carter Center estimates that 200 million people in 74 different countries are infected with Schistosomiasis. It is a parasite transmitted by snails living in slow moving water and usually affects school age children. The parasite is absorbed through the skin when exposed to contaminated water and can cause poor growth and development, bladder dysfunction and kidney disease. Schistosomiasis can be treated with a single dose of the drug Praziquantel. Here children who had just received a dose of Praziquantel in an effort to control the parasite are again swimming in contaminated water.
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