Adil Najam
This is a beautiful photograph. But the circumstances in which the picture was taken are sad.
The original caption reads:
A young Pakistani boy internally displaced walks across a bridge separating the camp at the Yar Hussain UNHCR camp in Chota Lahore on July 6, 2009 in Swabi district, Pakistan. Approximately 3 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) have been created as a result of an on-going military operation against the Taliban. Pakistani forces are battling militants in the Swat valley, Lower Dir and Buner. New camps are sprouting up while others continue to grow as people shift away from the city of Mardan where thousands were living with families and schools as the UNHCR and other aid agencies struggle to deal with the needs of so many. The refugees are facing extremely harsh living conditions in the searing heat in over crowded camps.
When I see this picture I am flooded with all sorts of emotions. Of resilience, of defiance, of sadness, of hope, of frustration, of responsibility.
What do you think of when you see this picture?
P.S. I wanted to use this post to also update on our fund-raising drive. We will close this current collection with this post. We will add another $1000 what is collected here and donate all to appropriate agencies helping the IDPs (in the past all the collection has been given evenly to the Edhi organization and to UNHCR). In the previous fundraising drive ATP readers had contributed just under $5000, which we had topped off to $5000 and added another $2000 from ATP. This time we will top off whatever is collected from the readers to $2000 and add another $1000 from ATP advertising. So, the total would come to $10,000 from All Things Pakistan to IDP relief (including $3000+ from ATP advertising). Our thanks to all those who have contributed to this drive (including some who have done so more than once), and to everyone who has supported IDP relief anywhere, through any means. We hope you will continue doing so through whatever avenues you find most useful to you.
This is a excellent photo.
For some reason give me more hope than despair. I do not know why. But I think this child’s future is bright and he will not forever be an IDP. We will not let that happen.
Quite symbolic, indeed; he’s been driven from his home, his neighborhood destroyed, and now finds himself in the midst of an ideological war he did not sign up for.
Any update on how soon these ID kiddos will be able to go back
to Swat?
–It is summer. All the schools are closed. Can some of the IDP
families be temporarily housed in the government schools?
— How about temporary adoptions? (Sort of like they did
in England during Blitz)
It is a remarkable picture from a photography point of view. But also a strong reminder of our responsibility to this child and all the other children in the IDP camps.
it is distressing to see an unaccompanied child crossing this thing in near darkness.