Portraits, 1st Prize
The Haunted
Adam Ferguson
For The New York Times Magazine
For The New York Times Magazine
22 April, 2019
Noora Ali Abbas (60) sits with her grandson Harreth (6) in their tent in Salamiyah IDP Camp 2, Nineveh, Iraq. Noora says Harreth’s father was taken by IS in 2015, but Harreth is stateless and unable to get an Iraqi government ID because the authorities believe his father was an IS fighter. Noora suffers from depression and anxiety and doesn’t like to let Harreth out of her sight.
As the Islamic State group (IS) retreated from territory around Mosul in northern Iraq, thousands of former IS prisoners were liberated, many in severe states of trauma. The photographer took posed portraits of displaced Yazidi people and other minorities who had suffered human rights violations perpetrated by IS, in camps for displaced people in northern Iraq. The Yazidi religion is monotheistic and can be traced back to ancient Mesopotamian and Abrahamic roots. Due to their unique beliefs, the Yazidi people were seen by the Sunnis of IS as ‘devil worshippers’. When IS occupied ancestral Yazidi lands in northern Iraq in 2014, IS fighters massacred around 5,000 Yazidi men. Women and girls were abducted and forced into sexual slavery, and boys forced to train as child soldiers. Some 500,000 Yazidis were displaced. Many now live in refugee camps in Iraqi Kurdistan and Nineveh Governorate in Iraq. Jan Kizilhan, a psychologist working in one such camp at a center for people who survived the atrocities, points to the effects of this severe personal and cultural trauma. These include feelings of helplessness and powerlessness, tension, and a variety of physical illnesses.
Adam Ferguson
Adam Ferguson studied photography at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University. After graduating, he traveled from port to port through the Caribbean and Mediterranean a...
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