In honor of the International Day of Peace and Peace Week, Lenscratch has partnered with the National Center for Civil and Human Rights to feature photographic projects highlighting the lasting impacts of war, conflict, and displacement. Lauren Tate Baeza
Wars are fought by soldiers and rebels, but they spare no one. The compounding fallout often spans for generations. This week’s selections examine burdens inherited by families and other bystanders. The Guatemalan Civil War lasted from 1960 to 1996, when peace accords were signed between guerillas and the military dictatorship. The war left hundreds of thousands of civilians dead or disappeared, a disproportionate amount of which were indigenous Mayan groups and rural poor the military considered supportive of guerillas. Rodrigo Abd’s series, Exhumations, includes emotive depictions of the retrieval of remains found at mass gravesites and, more than a decade after the war, the ongoing process of reconciliation as forensics aid in trial proceedings and family members provide proper burials for their loved ones in accordance with cultural and ancestral tradition.
The Feature Photography Award for “best feature photography published in any medium on an international theme” was given to Rodrigo Abd of Associated Press for his story on an emergency room in Guatemala.
The Associated Press photographer Rodrigo Abd sees the photos in his projects on Guatemala — many of which are shot alongside traditional wire assignments — as chapters in the history of the country’s postwar period.
Rodrigo Abd seeks out the places in Guatemala that most people avoid — hospital wards, prisons, crime scenes and mass graves. He forgoes the country’s lush volcanic landscapes for cinderblock walls and grimy alleys, seeing in each scene an echo of the nation’s recent past, where 36 years of civil war gave way to equally devastating gang and drug violence.
Rodrigo Abd, Manu Brabo, Khalil Hamra, Muhammed Muheisen and Narciso Contreras were members of the team that contributed to the agency’s coverage of the two-year-old conflict
“Anything we can do that can try to show the drama and massacres the Syrians are suffering is good.” Rodrigo Abd has been awarded the 1st Prize General News Single for his portrait of an injured woman in Syria. He speaks to BJP about the image and the difficulty he faced in reporting in Syria
Rodrigo Abd, whose haunting photo from Syria appeared on the front pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post on March 9, is one of the $10,000 AP Gramling Award winners
AP cameraman Ahmed Bahaddou and I sneaked into Syria from Turkey, traveling with the rebels’ Free Syrian Army. Our aim was to understand and cover the conflict in the country’s northwest region, as well as in the hard-hit Homs neighborhood of Bab Amr, under siege for weeks by government forces.
Photographs by Louie Palu, Asim Rafiqui, Rodrigo Abd, Andrea Bruce, Davide Monteleone, Saiful Huq Omi, Ami Vitale and Donald Weber.
The Aftermath Project, 2011. Softcover. 132 pp., black & white and color illustrations throughout, 11×11
