This training room has been devoid of patients since the 11 September tragic death of 38 year old ICRC physiotherapist Lorena Enebral Perez who was shot dead at the Mazar-e-Sharif ICRC Orthopaedic Centre. The centre caters for the rehabilitation of Afghans with severe physical disabilities like amputations and paraplegia as well as those suffering from congenital diseases with physical side effects like polio and cerebral palsy.
People wait for food distribution in an ICRC camp in Toumour where 47,000 Nigerian refugees and internally displaced Nigeriens took shelter in southeastern Niger. According to a recent UN report, 2.3 million people have been displaced in Lake Chad Basin and 129,000 Nigeriens have been internally displaced since 2015.
Olga Edelmira Romero Medina disappeared eight years ago. But her sixty year old mother Dilma Pilar Escobar continues to search for her till date. The 36 year old left Honduras in October 2009, leaving her five children behind with her mother. There has been no word from her since.
Characterized by intense, street-by-street, house-to-house fighting, the battle for Mosul initially seemed to avoid large-scale destruction. But as casualties rose, the cost for civilians became increasingly unbearable.
A young boy rests in his canoe on the Nile near Detwok, South Sudan, in August 2017.
More than 626,000 people have fled violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State and are now living in camps and settlements in Cox’s Bazar district in Bangladesh. This large-scale humanitarian crisis, which continues to escalate, puts pressure on aid agencies and communities already helping hundreds of thousands of people from previous waves of violence in Myanmar.
A photography competition organized by our team gave a sneak peek into how young Gazans lead their lives while waiting for long overdue political solutions. These young photographers showed that life in Gaza is much more than crises, fences, isolation and suffering.
A child receives medical care from an ICRC nurse outside Mosul, Iraq.
In 2016, eastern Aleppo in Syria was subjected to a siege that lasted 190 days. The fighting has left the city in ruins.
Cholera has ravaged Yemen as the country reached a record one million suspected cases in 2017. With the country’s health-care system decimated by two years of war, health-care workers are struggling to cope.
Our teams on the ground are at the forefront of the world's worst humanitarian crises. They witness both harrowing and moving moments in real life on a daily basis. Our photo team looks back at some of the most powerful and moving photos of 2017.