Faces of Iraq's Suffering

JB Russell

After almost 9 years of unrelenting violence in Iraq, many of the statistics of human suffering have started to become meaningless. These portraits attempt to regain a human dimension to the calamity that has befallen the country~~In recent years, journalists and humanitarian organisations have been largely unable to work in Iraq due to the volatile security situation in the country. During this time, car bombs, shootings, kidnappings, sectarian strife and generalised violence have become part of daily life for average Iraqis. Hundreds of thousands have been killed and many more have suffered severe injuries while going about mundane, daily activities such as going to work or to school, shopping for food in the market, playing games or simply sleeping in their homes. Other than the daily and abstract accounting of the dead and injured that run across the ticker tapes of news channels following each significant explosion or attack, the plight of Iraqis in recent years has been largely anonymous and obscure.

As US forces prepare to withdraw from Iraq at the end of 2011, serious concerns remain about the future of the country amid continuing lawlessness and the potential for sectarian conflicts to erupt into civil war. JB Russell visited a facility run by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Amman, Jordan, where he met Iraqis from all walks of life who have been affected by the violence in their country. The MSF project treats Iraqi victims of violence who can not otherwise get the medical attention they need in Iraq. The portraits of the patients in this facility are an attempt to quite literally put a human face on the meaningless statistics that emanate from Iraq which coldly record the number of men, women and children whose lives have been destroyed by the tragedy that has befallen their country.