photography

refugees #4

refugees #4

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Refugees from the war in Kosevo seeking shelter in an abandoned tobacco factory outside the town Shkoder in northern Albania, 1999.
refugees #1

refugees #1

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On my first trip to Africa, I visited the refugee camp Wad Sharifey. A camp that since 1968 had housed the refugees from Eritrea, who fought for independence from Ethiopia. The camp was situated in a dry and warm area in the borderland near the town of Kassala. Many of the residents lived a life on the border of hunger. In the camp's small hospital, they treated many eye infections due to dust and newcomers who, on foot, had crossed the desert area from Eritrea and were dehydrated, especially the small children who did not always survive. The camp still exists today. Wad Sharifey Camp for Eritrean refugees, The Sudan, 1991
refugees #2

refugees #2

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In may 1991 I was in Kassala in Sudan near the border to Eritrea photographing refugees from Eritrea in The Wad Sharifey Camp. Soon after fighting broke out in Eritrea between Eritrean People’s Liberation Front and Ethiopian government soldiers. The dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam had fled Ethiopia and his regime had collapsed. Thousands of government soldiers fled over the border into the semi desert land between Tessenei and Kassala, dehydrated in the heat and with many wounded. Many died before help slowly started to arrive. Warning: strong images.
romania after ceauşescu

romania after ceauşescu

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Demonstrations and first elections in may 1990. In May 1990, the University Square in Bucharest was filled with protesters. The first free elections were on the stairs and the hope of a new life freed from Ceauşescu and communism was alive. A democratic revolution. I photographed the election in a small rural town near Bucharest, I forgot its name. The election brought Ion Iliescu to power by overwhelming majority. Since then he has been charged with crimes against humanity by being responsible for the lives of hundreds of people who died in connection with the Romanian revolution. He himself belonged to the political elite under Ceauşescu and has since been accused of enriching people from the old regime, among others persons from the secret police Securitate. So maybe the Democratic Revolution was nothing more than a palace coup. Today, despite membership of the EU, Romania remains one of Europe's poorest and most corrupt countries.
ceauşescus children

ceauşescus children

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Orphanages in the Timișoara province, May 1990. Conditions in the Romanian orphanages were revealed to the outside world after Ceausescus regime broke down in 1989. Children left to themselves in beds or sitting in groups in bare rooms, children with illnesses, wounds and scabies, children with physical or mental disabilities, malnourished and with no care and love. In an attempt to increase the birthrate in order to fuel economic growth in the late sixties, Ceaușescu made abortion illegal for women under 40 with fewer than four children, announcing “the foetus is the property of the entire society.” From the late 70s in a society with widespread poverty many children would end up in state orphanages even though they had parents. Orphanages with no money and little, uneducated and poorly paid staff.