Walter, I applaud your efforts. Stories such as these need to stay fresh in the eyes of the public if something will ever happen to stop this violence. Yourself and others such as James Nachtwey are crying for action to be taken, but I fear local politics are too important for those who really need to hear and see these things.

Stay Strong.

Abrazo (argentino)
Patricio

I’m also happy to see that some attention is going to Congo, easily the worst humanitarian crisis of the last decades and easily one of the most overlooked.

Nevertheless, I think Burn should put in in the ‘In the Spotlight’ category together with Nachtwey. A guy with 3 World Press Photo is hardly an ‘Emerging Photographer’.

We live in a largely sick world where power and greed continue to take their tolls on the less fortunate.

Thanks Walter and the Burn team.

Live Aid showed that the public in the Western World has great compassion and empathy for fellow humans who suffer due to no fault of their own. Sometimes the situation seems overwhelming. The link between such atrocities and our comfortable existence does exist – in the sense that materials exported from the DRC feed, perhaps indirectly, such horror. I don’t think aid is the answer here. perhaps an embargo on materials from DRC? Being a photographer I see photographs like these, I see essays that show children having to spend their nights in towns to avoid being kidnapped and used as child soldiers but the newspapers and television are hardly shouting about it are they? If a child in the West is kidnapped the media are all over the story. I haven’t seen “African Child Kidnapped – Forced To Be Child Soldier” or “Congo – Rape Used As Weapon” as a headline recently.

amigo

el corazón fue hecho para ser roto…

no puedo decir otra cosa …. como ustedes saben, valoro este trabajo, toda su periodismo y estoy agradecido de continuar para continuar y persistir ….

la brutalidad de nuestra especie, de nuestras guerras, nunca de nuestras vidas en contra de los demás deja de asombrar con el tamaño y la profundidad de la que es horrible brutalidad ….

es un horror …. una atrocidad ….

y, sin embargo, en medio de toda esta miseria y el sufrimiento, que son capaces de encontrar un mosaico de estrellas … ya sea por los agujeros de bala de una tienda de campaña o del flash rayos de sol en contra de una lente de cristal o en la luz de un niño ….

para poner fin al sufrimiento y, sin embargo dentro de esa locura, de alguna manera han de detención de la verdad real, que estas mujeres y los niños no son efigies de sufrimiento, pero real, heridos, y que aún viven los seres humanos ….

una vez más, los tambores … la mente salta oído y pierde su ritmo ….

abrazos amgio,

bb

“What worries us is that rape seems to be becoming endemic in several parts of Congo,” Mr. Giuliano said, also referring to recent rapes in the eastern Kivu provinces. “We fear it’s becoming part of the routine.”

Mr. Giuliano needs to step past fear and into action as a member in an organization (UN) that can supposedly do something about this. Thanks for posting Panos, I think.

As I said, this is an old story (the ‘oldest profession’ was never that of a prostitute, but a soldier). And I don’t condemn soldiers (my father was one), because we’ve always needed them to protect us from certain ‘other’ kinds of soldier/mercenary. And of course the lines always blur in places. The worst scumbags are the ones who promote and encourage conflict without getting their hands dirty. I never fail to be dazed by our species’ atrocities. I cannot be ‘awed’ by them, since they are so much a part of our history, but I can be moved to anger and hopefully act on this.

So what can WE do, to support those who are going against the trend of our species, the survivors and helpers of survivors? Where do we send the aid, or spread the word (not that we can do this as effectively as you have with your photography)?

http://www.mediastorm.com/publication/undesired