Soldiers and policemen with sticks and shields detained hundreds of Honduran migrants who made up the Migrant Caravan in January 2021. The soldiers detained them in Vado Hondo, Chiquimula a few kilometers from the border between Guatemala and Honduras. The migrants were trying to cross Guatemala to reach the United States. Most members of the caravan left their country after storms ETA and IOTA devastated their communities.

Armenian law enforcement officers stand guard outside the government building during an opposition rally to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Yerevan, Armenia.

The funeral of Allameh Hassanzadeh Amoli was held in Amol, Iran, with the enthusiastic presence of the people. He was a theologian, jurist, mystic, astronomer and teacher of seminary courses. He also wrote poems in Persian, Tabari and Arabic.

Many homeless people in Dhaka have lost their homes and properties due to frequent Covid 19 outbreaks, floods, river erosion, and other natural calamities. They were forced to migrate to the city in search of a better future. These people have nowhere to take shelter in big cities. Their day starts in dump streets and ends in roads to nowhere. The concrete-covered street is a flower bed for these refugees, who have practically lost their identity. They live by working as street hawkers, labourers, and doing other odd jobs. Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Healthcare workers attend to COVID-19 patients on August 20, 2021, inside a chapel converted into an intensive care unit by the Quezon City General Hospital.

The tornado that hit Kentucky affected thousands of families just days before Christmas. In total, at least 88 people died, with fatalities also recorded in Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, and Illinois. Many homes, businesses, and churches in Mayfield, population 10,000, have blue tarps nailed over the gaping holes left in the buildings, but on other structures, roofs and blown out windows remain open to the sky. Work crews hauled away tons of debris in western Kentucky towns pulverized by deadly tornadoes as the traumatized residents began to rebuild their shattered lives. Some locals opted to stay in their damaged houses after the tornadoes struck last week instead of moving in with family or into shelters, as others did. But the destruction that raked across six states has triggered lesser-known tragedies too, in several instances out of the reach of a huge rescue and recovery operation. Rebuilding hard-hit Kentucky cities like Mayfield and Dawson Springs will take years, with entire neighborhoods devastated.

Just Numb

Pro-Trump protesters storm the U.S. Capitol to contest the certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results by the Congress, at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

Capitol Riot

We are the best-prepared generation in the history of Southern Europe. Yet we were sold a future that does not exist here. We inherited the deindustrialization and touristification of our countries. European policies centered the economic activity of these southern countries around the tertiary sector, turning them into tourist resorts for the northern countries which have industry and a solid flourishing economy. These policies have brought with them a precipitous increase in job instability, a wealth gap and gentrification. This last phenomenon has caused families to lose their homes and made housing inaccessible to young people, the lost generation that is living between two enormous crises. Entire families are unemployed, many of them barely surviving thanks to their grandparents' low pensions. Others are stressed, trying to make ends meet and some are unable to. We have failed to achieve the promised welfare state. Instead, we witness and experience increasing misery every day.

Lost Generation

Patson Daka became the hero of the Europa League group match between Spartak and Leicester City. He scored all the goals for Leicester, securing a phenomenal victory for his team and fans. No one could stop the player who seemed to have found a key to Spartak’s goalpost. Patson celebrated his fourth goal with a somersault, as pictured in the photo, to show the emotions from his triumph that day.

In early spring, the Xinyi Sports Park in Hegang City, Heilongjiang Province is still covered in snow. Fitness enthusiasts dance the ribbon dragon in the snow, which creates a beautiful scene in the park.

Competitors ride during the seventh stage of the 20th Tour of Qinghai Lake cycling race in northwest China, July 17, 2021.

Haer shaalgan, or breaking spine bones, is an old Buryatian pastime that was recognized as a national sport in 2020. Players try to break a cow or camel bone with the sharp movement of their hands. In popular Buryatian competitions, bone crushers can win cars and apartments. Thirty people participated in the first competition in 2013 and by 2020, the number grew. In haer shaalgan, 7 of the 13 largest bones from the same cow, bull or camel are used. Each bone must be at least 30 cm long, 4 cm wide and 6 mm thick. There are more than 20 tactics and the bone crushers often invent their own. They hit from the front, on the sides, while jumping and even from behind. This is a story about bone crushers from the Tunkinsky District of Buryatia. Khoito-Gol is a remote town, surrounded by the Sayany Mountains on three sides. Locals believe that its isolation helped preserve the custom of bone crushing.

Костоломы

In the Syrian village of Al-Jina near Aleppo, Wassim Sttot has opened a karate school for children. What makes it special is that girls and boys with and without disabilities are taught together. They are between 6 and 15 years old. With his school, Satot wants to create a sense of community and overcome war experiences — Aleppo was fiercely contested — in the minds of the children.

Sport and fun instead of war and fear

Turkey’s Sahinbey Municipality’s Amputee Football Team is training for the EAFF Amputee Football Champions League in May 2021. Amputee sports has become popular in Turkey in recent years especially due to the success of the national teams in many sports. Amputee football was officially recognized in Turkey in 2004. This inspired many young people to take up sports. Founded in 2017, Sahinbey Municipality’s Amputee Football Team fought for the EAFF Amputee Football Champions Cup in May 2021. Daily life is not easy for disabled people. It sometimes gets harder for amputee footballers. Their health can make training a challenge. These young footballers do their best to keep playing and win matches.

Strong wings, steel feet

In Iran, several thousand female boxers train illegally and secretly in the basements of houses, parks and underground clubs. In Iran, boxing is forbidden for women, but athletes compete in world championships abroad and often win. Dr. Mahin Farhadizad, Deputy Minister of Sports in President Rouhani's government, said about the ban on such sports as boxing and powerlifting for women: "We cannot accept a sport that affects the entire body system and physiology of women."

Boxing is a forbidden sport

Women workers are hand-picking and sorting red chili peppers in a traditional way.

Nemo's Garden is the first system of underwater greenhouses in the world. Its biosphere is located 40 meters off the coast of Noli, a small village on the Ligurian coast, at a depth between 6 and 12 meters to enable the plants to draw on the necessary source of light for their development. This completely self-sustainable project represents an alternative farming system that will help us to tackle new challenges brought on by climate change.

The floods caused by heavy rains have created many problems for the people of Sarajevo. One of the hardest-hit neighborhoods is Otes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Sarajevo Waves building complex, located in that part of the capital, is still underwater. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, risks caused by climate change are exacerbated by high unemployment among the most vulnerable groups of the population, damaged infrastructure, and lags in technological innovation. Climate change in Bosnia and Herzegovina include increases in temperature, more extreme weather, floods, droughts, heatwaves, and rainfall variability with decreasing summer averages.

A boatman tries to cross the frozen Dal Lake by cracking the ice and pushing the boat forward. The photograph has been taken in Srinagar, India, during its coldest winter period called the Chillai Kalan.

Peru is home to the world’s largest number of alpacas. The country has approximately 4 million of the animals, which is roughly 70% of the world ‘s total alpaca population. They are reared in high-altitude regions, generally more than 3,000 meters above sea level. The animals play a critical role in the lives of communities along the Andean plateau where crops cannot be grown and the only economic activity, besides mining, is alpaca herding. More than 1 million people, depend exclusively on alpacas for their livelihoods. Climate change poses a growing risk to alpacas and the communities they sustain. The Andes are experiencing shorter, but more intense, rainy seasons, and longer periods of drought. Frosts and hail storms have become more common. Changing weather patterns are shrinking natural pastures and reducing the quality of grasses. Peru already has lost 53.5 percent of its glacier coverage and could be without glaciers by 2100. This project aims to investigate how climate change in Peru is affecting Alpaca breeders by turning them into reluctant "climate migrants".

Alpaqueros

The Salento region, located in the heel of Italy's boot, is widely known for its olive oil. But since 2013, a plant bacterium, Xylella fastidiosa, has been responsible for a disease that is killing millions of olive trees in what is considered the world's worst phytosanitary emergency. This epidemic, for which there is still no remedy, has devastated the landscape and caused massive economic and environmental damage: many people have lost their livelihoods and a huge green lung has been wiped out along with its carbon-fixing capacity. But another, more intimate loss affects the lives of local people: the loss of their own identity. Some 60 million olive trees in the region, many of them centuries old, are deeply rooted in local culture, as symbols of ancient traditions and legacies of past generations. With the spread of this plague, people have lost not only the roots of their trees but also the roots that emotionally connect them to their past.

Lost Roots: the Olive Trees Apocalypse in Italy

These photos were taken on the Taimyr Peninsula, located above the Arctic Circle. These photos are about children who live far away from civilization, whose way of life and living conditions are similar to those of their ancestors. They have no internet or means of communication with society. The camera gave me the ability to capture unique moments from their lives.

Children of the arctic

You walk along the coast every day, relax by the sea, take a swim, and then one morning you find the water has turned brown. What do you feel? I was frightened. I felt the reality of global warming to my bones. The Sea of Marmara is an important region of Turkey, with many large cities on its shores. Because of global warming, a blanket of a mucus-like substance in the Marmara Sea is increasing day by day, threatening the fishing industry and the environment. According to media reports, a layer of so-called sea snot, (marine mucilage) formed as a result of the proliferation of microalgae called phytoplankton in the sea, has reached water levels as deep as 30 meters below the surface in some parts of the Marmara Sea. The main reason for this is that the water temperature in the Marmara Sea is 2.5 degrees higher than average levels over the last 40 years.

Meet the sea snot as global warming has given us

In the last few months, the flood situation has worsened around Dhaka, in Kishoreganj, due to unseasonal rains and landslides. The water level is still rising in all the nearby rivers. As a result, several villages have been submerged. People in these areas, which have been under water for six months, have lost their only crop in the floods and are now in dire straits, facing challenging life conditions. The pictures were taken from the Austagram area of the Kishoreganj district of Bangladesh on September 22, 2021.

Flood

Father Loknath said that he would light lamps and incense in the Ashram after fasting in Kartik for a month to prevent life-threatening diseases. Worshipers observe this fast, or Kartikabrata, on the last 15 days of the Kartik month every year to wish their loved ones good luck. Thousands of devotees prayed at the Loknath Brahmachari Ashram and the temple at barodi in the capital on the occasion of Kartikabrata or Rakher Upobash. When the lamp was lit in the evening, they broke the fast.

Lailya Begum's husband has been visually impaired since birth. He has also suffered from asthma and arthritis for the past few years. She has to beg from door to door to afford the cost of her husband's treatment and the expenses of her six children. She struggles to run such a huge household with the money she gets from begging. The situation was made even worse when the entire village was submerged during a horrific flood. They were water-logged for 4-5 days. To protect themselves from the flood, they took shelter in their neighbor's house. Her two sons were affected by water-borne diseases. She relied on the borrowed money from her neighbors and her days were filled with sorrow. She will be able to repair the damaged house, seek treatment for her husband, and provide a better future for her children if she receives assistance.

A member of the guard of honor during the burial of the remains of Soviet army soldiers on the eve of Victory Day celebrations.

This image was captured during a face painting event in the villages of West Bengal, to celebrate Bengali New Year. The grandmother was feeling shy to have her picture taken so she covered her face and smiled from behind.

Cathy Tobias, 67, poses as she looks at her courtyard which has turned into a memorial for Covid-19 victims, in Anna Maria Island, Florida, on March 1, 2021. — When Cathy Tobias began tying a ribbon to a rope for each Covid-19 death in Florida, she had no idea her entire patio would end up being draped in color. The eye-catching tribute to those who have died in the Sunshine State during the pandemic crisscrosses her patio, weaves across stairs and onto a balcony at her home on Anna Maria Island, a small community on Florida's Gulf coast. There are now more than 30,000 ribbons in all colors of the rainbow — from pale pink to crimson to neon green. Sitting on a porch with a neighbor who has helped her create the memorial, Tobias said she began to tie the ribbons because she wanted to visualize the death toll.

Shif Island, located in the south of Iran in the Persian Gulf, is home to about 800 families. The dominant language in this village is Arabic. The occupation of most of the people in the Island is fishing. Women in this area wear colorful or patterned chadors. My goal in this photography project was to show what life is like for Shif's women; women and girls who, despite all the restrictions, still pursue their dreams. But most of these women and girls wear their chadors to be photographed, which for me was a reminder of their real life; women and girls with clothing full of colors and dreams hidden behind these chadors. It was a symbol of their lives. These colorful chadors concealed the truth of their lives, which I tried to reveal.

Hidden dream

Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disorder affecting the lungs that makes it extremely difficult to breathe. Waiting for a lung transplant can take years, so people with the condition will rent empty lonely apartments in Moscow, where there is a higher chance of finding a donor. A donated lung is viable for only 2 to 3 hours. COVID-19 has only made the situation worse, as the attention of pulmonologists around the world turned to battling coronavirus, and cystic fibrosis patients were overshadowed. When I visited Lera, I learned that she had not been outside for several months because she was constantly hooked up to oxygen. Some of these patients have family who dropped everything to be near them. Like Dima’s wife, who was not deterred by his terminal diagnosis and married him. Like Lera’s sister who, after their mother’s death, dropped out of school because she didn’t want to lose her sister too. But what about those who are alone? How do they stay sane one-on-one with the disease? Some of them feel strong and try to work, like Lilya. She knits dogwear. But they can’t ever stop waiting. Waiting for the call that a donor has been found. For some, the wait is too long.

Oxygen

Dyslexic people are often labeled as listless, inattentive and lazy; the experience, however, does not confirm this prejudice. “Dyslexia” comes from the Greek where “dys” means missing and “lexis” language. Dyslexia is not a weakness, it’s a condition, a disorder. It interferes with reading, writing, and counting, resulting in learning difficulties. With the help of compensatory strategies, dyslexic people can overcome the frustration that accompanies their experience and go on to great thing. Prominent dyslexics include Albert Einstein, John Lennon, Agatha Christie, Pablo Picasso, Magic Johnson, Jennifer Aniston and many others. With the right guidance, people with dyslexia can succeed in any sphere: the arts, sports, languages, social professions, science, nature. Or even photography, as in my case.

DYS

Afghanistan, now called the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, has been plagued by war, poverty, and insecurity for more than four decades. The Taliban, which previously held power for about 4 years, is now back in charge. The illicit opium trade is intertwined with Afghanistan’s economy. Currently, this 1,000 bed camp houses 3,500 drug addicts who were forced to go through withdrawal by the Taliban. They did not eat for a week because the Taliban had no money for food. The detainees show the range of Afghan lives hollowed out by the country’s tumultuous past of war, invasion, and hunger. They were poets, soldiers, merchants, interpreters, and farmers. Helplessness and distress, uncertainty, broken family ties, and despair have made the present unbearable for them. In their confusion, they search for their lost identity and that of their country. No one knows how many more days the people in this camp can endure.

The Dark Days