Caroline Irby

Sierra Leone’s children of war, 2002-2022

I made a radio programme about this story for the BBC, produced by Alex Renton and Caitlin Smith. It’s called ‘Sierra Leone’s Children of War’ and you can listen here! https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct4pnq

Someone else’s mother

I grew up in London with a Filipina woman called Juning, who had four children of her own living on a small island in the Philippines 7,000 miles away. Juning’s husband left when their children were young, and all financial responsibility for the family fell to her. For several years Juning worked as a nanny in the capital, Manila, but in 1974, knowing that a local income could not cover her children’s school fees, Juning decided to look for work abroad. Her youngest child was two years old when she left for Hong Kong.

In 1976 my parents and brother, then a year old, moved from London to Hong Kong for my father’s work. My mother soon became pregnant with me, and in the spring of 1977, a few weeks before I was born, she advertised for a ‘mother’s help’ at the local Waitrose. Juning was one of four women who responded to the post.

Two years later, we moved back to London, and Juning came with us. She continued to live with my family for twenty-two years, until 1999 when she remarried and moved to the neighbouring street. In 2007 she retired to her island.

Every day, 5,000 Filipinos leave their country in search of work abroad. For decades this movement has been female dominated: more than 70% of Filipino emigrants are currently women. There isn’t a figure for how many are mothers leaving children behind – it must be thousands every day. As adult and a mother myself now, and having spent nearly two decades working as a photographer covering stories about migration and displacement, the notion that Juning lived apart from her children for three decades became painful to imagine and I couldn’t shake off a feeling of strangeness that their lives and mine had carried on in parallel for all those years, mine with their mother, theirs without. We are all part of the same curious equation, and after decades of living in tandem but remotely, I wanted to try to understand how this all happened and what the effect on the people involved had been.

I made three journeys to Bantayan, the island of Juning’s birth (which she has now returned to) and spent time with both Juning and her now grownup children. On the most recent visit, I took my own young children with me. The resulting story, ‘Someone Else’s Mother’, published by Schilt in 2020, interweaves interviews I recorded with Juning’s children with my own recollections of a childhood spent with their mother, and photographs I made on my old Rolleiflex with images from Juning and my father’s albums.

Someone Else’s Mother is widely available in bookstores and online: https://www.schiltpublishing.com/shop/books/new-releases/someone-elses-mother/

Artists and Makers

UNHCR + UNICEF

View from the apartment of Dania Mohammad Al-Asaad, 27, a Syrian refugee living in Hashemi Shamali, Amman, Jordan.

Kalehe, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Maliyetu Shamavu, known as Cadette, 25, returns to her home in a transitional settlement in Kalehe, South Kivu, with her grandmother, who she lives with along with her husband, six children and seven siblings. Cadette, and all the residents of this site, is here because their village, Rambira, a four hour walk away, flooded when the nearby river burst its banks in 2014. Its residents took shelter in a plantation called Bulera for two years, but they had no means to support themselves, no roof over their heads and very poor living conditions. In 2019, UNHCR negotiated with local authorities for the purchase of land in Kalehe for them to move to, and brought in an engineer to build the first foundation of a shelter. The families continued to build their own houses with cash assistance. One of the many difficult choices Cadette has to make is between food and patching up her house. She has chosen food.
Kalehe, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Maliyetu Shamavu, known as Cadette, 25, pregnant with her seventh child, returns to her home in a transitional settlement in Kalehe with her grandmother, after receiving NFIs, (non-food items) from a UNHCR distribution. Cadette lives in this site, in a small house with two rooms, with her six children, her grandmother (left) and her seven siblings, who she also looks after (she lost her parents a long time ago). Cadette, along with all the residents of this site, is here because their village, Rambira, a four hour walk away, flooded when the nearby river burst its banks in 2014. Its residents took shelter in a plantation called Bulera for two years, but they had no means to support themselves, no roof over their heads and very poor living conditions. In 2019, UNHCR negotiated with local authorities for the purchase of land in Kalehe for them to move to, and brought in an engineer to build the first foundation of a shelter. The families continued to build their ow

Kalehe, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Maliyetu Shamavu, known as Cadette, 25, pregnant with her seventh child, at home in a transitional settlement site. Cadette lives here in a small house with two rooms, with her six children, her grandmother, and her seven siblings, who she also looks after (she lost her parents a long time ago). Cadette, along with all the residents of this site, is here because their village, Rambira, a four hour walk away, flooded when the nearby river burst its banks in 2014. Its residents took shelter in a plantation called Bulera for two years, but they had no means to support themselves, no roof over their heads and very poor living conditions. In 2019, UNHCR negotiated with local authorities for the purchase of land in Kalehe for them to move to, and brought in an engineer to build the first foundation of a shelter. The families continued to build their own houses with cash assistance. One of the many difficult choices Cadette has to make is between food and patching up her house. She has chosen food.

Kalehe, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Maliyetu Shamavu, known as Cadette, 25, pregnant with her seventh child, outside her home in a transitional settlement site. Cadette lives here in a small house with two rooms, with her six children, her grandmother, and her seven siblings, who she also looks after (she lost her parents a long time ago). Cadette, along with all the residents of this site, is here because their village, Rambira, a four hour walk away, flooded when the nearby river burst its banks in 2014. Its residents took shelter in a plantation called Bulera for two years, but they had no means to support themselves, no roof over their heads and very poor living conditions. In 2019, UNHCR negotiated with local authorities for the purchase of land in Kalehe for them to move to, and brought in an engineer to build the first foundation of a shelter. The families continued to build their own houses with cash assistance. One of the many difficult choices Cadette has to make is between food and patching up her house. She has chosen food.

Kalehe, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Gugu Mbatha-Raw with Maliyetu Shamavu, known as Cadette, 25, pregnant with her seventh child, at home in a transitional settlement site. Cadette lives here in a small house with two rooms, with her six children, her grandmother, and her seven siblings, who she also looks after (she lost her parents a long time ago). Cadette, along with all the residents of this site, is here because their village, Rambira, a four hour walk away, flooded when the nearby river burst its banks in 2014. Its residents took shelter in a plantation called Bulera for two years, but they had no means to support themselves, no roof over their heads and very poor living conditions. In 2019, UNHCR negotiated with local authorities for the purchase of land in Kalehe for them to move to, and brought in an engineer to build the first foundation of a shelter. The families continued to build their own houses with cash assistance. One of the many difficult choices Cadette has to make is between food and patching up her house. She has chosen food.

Kalehe, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Gugu Mbatha-Raw with Maliyetu Shamavu, known as Cadette, 25, pregnant with her seventh child, in the plot of land where she grows vegetables by her home in a resettlement site in Kalehe. Cadette lives here in a small house with two rooms with her six children, her grandmother, and her seven siblings who she looks after too. She lost her parents a long time ago. Cadette, along with all the residents of this site, is here because their village, Rambira, a four hour walk away, flooded when the nearby river burst its banks in 2014. Its residents took shelter in a plantation called Bulera for two years, but they had no means to support themselves, no roof over their heads and very poor living conditions. In 2019, UNHCR negotiated with local authorities for the purchase of land in Kalehe for them to move to, and brought in an engineer to build the first foundation of a shelter. The families continued to build their own houses with cash assistance. One of the many difficult choices Cadette has to make is between food and patching up her house. She has chosen food.

People boarding a boat to cross the river close to Tshilenge, a temporary settlement camp near Kananga, Kasai-Central Province
Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Kananga, Kasai-Central Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Gugu Mbatha-Raw visits Tshilenge, a temporary settlement site near Kananga, and meets Veronique Bundu just as she receives the keys to her newly built home, durable enough to last thirty years. Veronique was identified as a particularly vulnerable case, and therefore front of the queue to be resettled. She, like many of the beneficiaries, fled to neighbouring Angola in 2017 during a period of conflict.

Walungu, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Details in the ‘safe space’ / counselling room at Walungu Health Centre, which is dedicated to the psychosocial care of survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) as well as victims of other protection incidents in Walungu. The clinic comes under the banner of the Panzi Foundation and is supported by UNHCR.
Community based health workers identify cases in the community and refer them to the centre. When these cases arrive at the centre, an immediate evaluation of their needs takes place, then staff offer four services: medical care (often taking patients to Mulamba hospital: a one-stop health centre also supported by Doctor Mukwege), psychosocial care, socio-economic support and legal advice.

Walungu, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. A rape survivor is assessed soon after arriving at Walungu Health Centre, which is dedicated to the psychosocial care of survivors gender-based violence (GBV) as well as victims of other protection incidents in Walungu. The clinic comes under the banner of the Panzi Foundation and is supported by UNHCR.
Community based health workers identify cases in the community and refer them to the centre. When these cases arrive at the centre, an immediate evaluation of their needs takes place, then staff offer four services: medical care (often taking patients to Mulamba hospital: a one-stop health centre also supported by Doctor Mukwege), psychosocial care, socio-economic support and legal advice.
Underfunding means that survivors of GBV will have to choose between justice or a safe space to heal.

Amelie (not her real name) photographed with her daughter, is a survivor of gender-based violence (GBV) and has been supported by the Kananga-based charity FMMDI (Femmes Main dans les main pour le Developpement Intégral).
Extracts from Amelie’s interview:
“I’m at the teaching University in Kananga, I am studying to teach nutrition. I wanted to study nutrition because over time people are going to be looking for nutritionists. I looked at our country and at our Province and there weren’t many nutritionists, that’s why
If I remember correctly, one night in 2020, a group of bandits came to the plot of land in Etanganza where I lived with all my family. I was kidnapped, they bound my eyes, my mouth – I couldn’t see, I didn’t know where I was. All I knew was I was in a vehicle: a 4×4 – I could feel the movement. But I was blindfolded, I couldn’t tell who I was with. We left and travelled a distance, eventually we arrived somewhere and there five young men, I was locked in a house and they left. In the house I realised there were seven young girls, I was the eighth. I was sixteen. Now I’m nineteen.
And then, once we had arrived there [at the house] I spent nearly 2 months and three weeks there, locked in this house. When they [the young men] left to find food, they left with the door locked. When they returned they would open the door. During the two months and three weeks that I did there, I was raped buy these five men from one day to the next.
Apart from that, there was day when the FARDC noticed the house. Because the house was always locked, it was locked at night, locked during the day – it was always locked. They [the five young men] men left early in the morning. They would leave as early as 04.00, only to return by 22.00 or 23.00.
One day they [the five young men] left the house, we [they eight girls] were left in the house and I asked the other girls, ‘How long have you been here?’ they responded, ‘We have counted nearly one

Street scenes in Bukavu, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Dania Mohammad Al-Asaad, 27, a Syrian refugee in Hashemi Shamali, Amman, Jordan. Originally from Daraa, Dania came to Jordan 2013 with her parents and sister. She got married in 2019 and has a 1.6-year-old son, Jude. The family home in Syria was partially destroyed. Dania had volunteered with Jordan River Foundation with UNHCR. She received a DAFI (Albert Einstein German Academic Refugee Initiative) scholarship and studied English Literature while in Jordan. She loves to read, and her favourite book is the Great Gatsby. She hopes to write a book based on her life one day.

Amelie (not her real name) photographed with her daughter, is a survivor of gender-based violence (GBV) and has been supported by the Kananga-based charity FMMDI (Femmes Main dans les main pour le Developpement Intégral).
FMMDI was founded by Nathalie Kambala in 2012. During her university studies, Nathalie’s family received a marriage dowry from a man living in Canada, but her husband returned to Canada after the wedding, leaving her in the DRC. Three years later, she learned he was also married to a woman in Rwanda. This experience led her to establish FMMDI in the Kasai-Central Province in 2012 (she had by then qualified as a lawyer) to protect women’s rights, women’s empowerment, and battle against gender-based violence.
FMMDI is one of UNHCR’s operational partners in Kasai-Central. It strives for socio-economic reintegration through vocational training, and academic training via UNHCR’s partner universities in Kananga; it provides safe spaces for women to, and its founder Nathalie Kambala is also campaigning traditional chiefs to sign a commitment act, to abolish degrading practices against women (in this area of DRC, if a woman is raped, traditionally she is accused of adultery and shamed), which has allowed the reunification of 200 households.

Amelie (not her real name) photographed with her daughter, is a survivor of gender-based violence (GBV) and has been supported by the Kananga-based charity FMMDI (Femmes Main dans les main pour le Developpement Intégral).
FMMDI was founded by Nathalie Kambala in 2012. During her university studies, Nathalie’s family received a marriage dowry from a man living in Canada, but her husband returned to Canada after the wedding, leaving her in the DRC. Three years later, she learned he was also married to a woman in Rwanda. This experience led her to establish FMMDI in the Kasai-Central Province in 2012 (she had by then qualified as a lawyer) to protect women’s rights, women’s empowerment, and battle against gender-based violence.
FMMDI is one of UNHCR’s operational partners in Kasai-Central. It strives for socio-economic reintegration through vocational training, and academic training via UNHCR’s partner universities in Kananga; it provides safe spaces for women to, and its founder Nathalie Kambala is also campaigning traditional chiefs to sign a commitment act, to abolish degrading practices against women (in this area of DRC, if a woman is raped, traditionally she is accused of adultery and shamed), which has allowed the reunification of 200 households.

Umm Muhammad, 39, in her apartment in Jabal Al-Nuzha, Amman. Umm Muhammad and her family are refugees from Homs, Syria. She has two sons, Majed, 19, and Radwan, 15, and two daughters, Noor, 17 and Radir, who is now married. Umm Muhammad’s husband died suddenly in a traffic accident in Syria in 2008; the family fled from Syria to Jordan in 2013. Umm Muhammad keeps the house key to her home in Syria that her husband bought for her, with the hope that one day they will return home. She still has two brothers in Syria and her father lives in Jordan. She cooks and sells food from home to people upon orders. The family stopped receiving cash assistance from UNHCR a year ago, once Majed turned 18; however, they received winter assistance in November/December 2022, which was used to back-pay rent. The family are still in debt for rent.

UNHCR high profile supporter Liza Koshy meets Dania Mohammad Al-Asaad, 27, in Hashemi Shamali, Amman, Jordan. Originally from Daraa, Dania came to Jordan 2013 with her parents and sister. She got married in 2019 and has a 1.6-year-old son, Jude. The family home in Syria was partially destroyed. Dania had volunteered with Jordan River Foundation with UNHCR. She received a DAFI (Albert Einstein German Academic Refugee Initiative) scholarship and studied English Literature while in Jordan. She loves to read, and her favourite book is the Great Gatsby. She hopes to write a book based on her life one day.

The kitchen of Dania Mohammad Al-Asaad, 27, a Syrian refugee in Hashemi Shamali, Amman, Jordan. Originally from Daraa, Dania came to Jordan 2013 with her parents and sister. She got married in 2019 and has a 1.6-year-old son, Jude. The family home in Syria was partially destroyed. Dania had volunteered with Jordan River Foundation with UNHCR. She received a DAFI (Albert Einstein German Academic Refugee Initiative) scholarship and studied English Literature while in Jordan. She loves to read, and her favourite book is the Great Gatsby. She hopes to write a book based on her life one day.

The sky over Amman, Jordan.

The sky over Amman, Jordan.

Jordan. UNHCR high profile supporter Liza Koshy pauses to take in the view of Amman as she approaches the home of Umm Muhammad, 39, a refugee from Syria, in Jabal Al-Nuzha, Amman.

UNHCR high profile supporter Liza Koshy meets Umm Muhammad, 39, and her daughter Noor, 17, in their apartment in Jabal Al-Nuzha, Amman. Umm Muhammad and her family are refugees from Homs, Syria. She has two sons, Majed, 19, and Radwan, 15, and two daughters, Noor, 17 and Radir, who is now married. Umm Muhammad’s husband died suddenly in a traffic accident in Syria in 2008; the family fled from Syria to Jordan in 2013.
Umm Muhammad keeps the house key to her home in Syria that her husband bought for her, with the hope that one day they will return home. She still has two brothers in Syria and her father lives in Jordan. She cooks and sells food from home to people upon orders. The family stopped receiving cash assistance from UNHCR a year ago, once Majed turned 18; however, they received winter assistance in November/December 2022, which was used to back-pay rent. The family are still in debt for rent. Noor is in school and loves to spend time with her friends but often can’t afford to go out and meet them. She loves interior design and hopes to study it in the future.

UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador David Beckham travelled to Cambodia to see how UNICEF and its partners are helping children who have endured physical, sexual and emotional abuse, and are protecting vulnerable children from danger.

A young boy sleeps at a UNICEF supported drop in centre in Siem Reap Cambodia. The drop in centre offers street children a place to sleep, shower and access vital emotional support.

Freedom is not easy

Claiming a new place on Earth / Freedom is not easy – two projects with journalist Veronique Mistiaen

Caroline collaborated with journalist Veronique Mistiaen on two exhibitions commissioned by the refugee charity Breaking Barriers. For the first, ‘Freedom is not easy’ (shown at The Proud Archivist in London in 2016) Caroline photographed twelve refugees now living in London, in the various places where they first felt free or safe after arriving in this city, and they shared their stories of flight and readjustment to a new life in the UK with journalist Veronique Mistiaen.

For the second exhibition, ‘Claiming a new place on Earth’ (shown at Protein Studios in London in 2017) Caroline photographed ten refugees now living in the UK in the context of their dream job, and Veronique interviewed each of them about the future they hope for. This gallery contains images from both exhibitions.

Caroline and Veronique have worked on a number of humanitarian stories overseas and in the UK. They have travelled widely with their work, particularly in Africa and Asia where they have seen some of the causes that trigger people to flee their homes, and visited the camps where refugees and displaced people find shelter – usually in their own countries or in neighbouring states. But some refugees move further: some cross the Sahara, the Mediterranean and the Channel, and now live here in the UK. Caroline and Veronique wanted to meet some of the refugees who have settled here, to learn what propels them to move so far, and to hear about their experiences of seeking – and sometimes finding – freedom, safety and a home in this city.

At a time when politicians and the media too often dehumanize refugees by referring to them as an anonymous mass, they wanted to restsore some of their identities by giving these twelve refugees a face and a voice.

A BROADER SPECTRUM OF EMOTIONS

I became a mother in August 2010. My main focus until that point had been my photography, which took me all over the world, on editorial and NGO assignments, and I loved it. My life has taken on a different scope and pace since then: whilst continuing to work when I can, and certainly to photograph, my focus now is primarily on the day-to-day business of looking after two small people (our second child was born in December 2012). My location has largely been home, though change is adrift again, our youngest child having now started to go to nursery.

At home, I have watched our son’s growing interaction with the world, and then begun watch my daughter’s. I have been able to see how raw and full of wonder life is when experienced for the first time: the sight of fire, the taste of an apple, the sensation of being sprayed by a sprinkler, and I have experienced this wonder again myself, watching and sharing in my children’s responses to the world.

My life has slowed down. A few years ago a typical day might have been spent following a child soldier’s reunification with his family somewhere in West Africa; photographing stories of flight and survival in a refugee camp; or negotiating with an embassy to let me into a country where journalists aren’t welcome. Now, I might now spend a whole morning helping my daughter to collect and pile grass cuttings into her trike, watching squirrels climb trees, or riding buses and trains for the sake of it. (In my new life as in my old, the journey is the destination.)Watch Full Movie Online Streaming and Dow

This period of my life sometimes feels incredibly frustrating – the repetitiveness and mundanity of the task of caring; the isolation; the tantrums you are rewarded with. And although occasionally I want to speed things up, and my mind wanders back to the road, mostly I am glad that something has enabled me, demanded of me, for the first time really, to live in the present, be observant and appreciative of the little things, be less dependent on big journeys and high dramas for stimulation.

A friend told me, not long before I first gave birth, that becoming a mother had opened her up to ‘a broader spectrum of emotions’, and of all the things I have been told about motherhood, for me this has been the most accurate. Being a mother has introduced me to new levels of elation, exasperation, satisfaction, self-questioning, trust and friendship. It has involved me in dramas of a different scale and frequency to the ones I used to be drawn to in my work. This feels like as emotionally rich a period as I can imagine; one that will feed into the rest of my life – and, I hope, my creativity.

A Child from Everywhere

During 2008-9, I spent 18 months trying to find, then photograph and interview, a child from every country in the world now living in the UK. Children from 185 of the world’s 192 countries (as recognised by the UN at the time) took part in this project. Originally commissioned by the Guardian Weekend Magazine, the project became a Book, A Child from Everywhere, and a series of four mini-films for Channel 4.

Floating World

I had a few days in Japan post-assignment, where I stayed in Tokyo with a friend, and wandered without agenda. Nowhere feels as foreign to me as Japan. I have been fascinated by the culture for years; and being there, understanding so little, created a wonderful environment for photographing. I am more used to working in developing countries, where being white and carrying a camera often has the effect of creating a spectacle, drawing a crowd. In Japan I felt invisible, and the world around me took on the feeling of the ‘floating world’ of the Ukiyo-e: the beautiful Japanese woodblock prints I have spent years looking at, and which fed into my photography on this particular trip.

New Day

Navruz, meaning ‘new day’, is a spring festival rooted in the Zoroastrian tradition, celebrated across Central Asia for at least 2,500 years. Held on 21st March, at the time of the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere, the day signifies balance, and marks the start of the new year, when the powers of light symbolically overcome the powers of darkness.

I joined in Navruz celebrations in the village of Pista Mazor, close to Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan. The 21st was a day filled with feasting, music, and dancing, shared by the whole village. This was followed by a 13 day holiday, given over to visiting family, spring cleaning, forgiving debts, sewing seeds, and collecting the new season’s herbs – it was a time of renewal.

Lost Time

Since February 2003, two million people are estimated to have fled from their homes in Darfur, a region of West Sudan the size of France. This mass displacement has been engineered through joint attacks: by the government bombing from the air, and by the Janjaweed, a local Arab militia, who follow on horseback, burning and looting non-Arab villages throughout the region. The stories I heard from displaced people now living in camps varied little, insofar as everyone had lost almost everything.

Without a political solution to Darfur’s problems, the region’s two million displaced will be unable to return home, and Darfur’s camps will start to look less temporary.

‘I’m a farmer. I can’t get a job here,’ a displaced man called Musa Abdulaziz told me from the chaos of the camp where he stays in El Fasher. ‘I want to return home to look after my animals and begin planting. This is lost time for me.’

Living Relic

In near silence, a dozen women volunteers moved around a table, filling hundreds of cups with sweet tea in this day centre for old people in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The elderly people were barely visible in an unlit room, where they sat playing cards, sifting stones from lentils, or just waited, almost motionless, for their daily meal to be served. There were men wearing the same uniforms they’d worn decades before, as soldiers under Haile Selassies’s regime; old priests in their robes; a former tailor in his patched-up suit… The centre seemed to me to be a living relic to Ethiopia’s recent past.

Full Circle

This is a portrait of a village called Uhambingeto in rural Tanzania, centred on one woman, Joyce Mbwilo, and her family. It is also an attempt to portray the way one community in the developing world is affected by the way we live in the West. Climate change has meant half the crop in Uhambingeto has failed, each year, for the past four years; and the country’s debt means insufficient funds are available to subsidise secondary education. But Uhambingeto has also been positively affected by the actions of the West: with the initial round of debt relief granted in 2000, Tanzania’s government made primary education free and compulsory: all the children in this village now go to school. And with support from an NGO called Tearfund, Joyce no longer walks for ten hours each night to collect water: the water is pumped directly to the village centre. This water has had a far reaching effect on Joyce, her family, and the village.