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  • AFP / Patrick Baz
  • AFP / Patrick Baz

A tale of two statues

Patrick Baz Monday 9 April 2018

"The images that everyone remembers of the fall of Baghdad in 2003 are those of the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down by American soldiers, two days after US forces entered Iraq’s capital in April," writes Patrick Baz, a veteran AFP Middle East photographer who covered that war.

"The photos of that statue coming down, taken 15 years ago on April 9, 2003, are the ones that will forever mark that point in the country’s history. I shot the images from the balcony of my hotel. I was inside, sending what I thought was a much more interesting photo -- the desecration of another statue of Saddam, but by Iraqis, with no Americans in sight."

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  • AFP / Stefanie Glinski
  • AFP / Stefanie Glinski
  • AFP / Stefanie Glinski

Beauty within chaos

Stefanie Glinski Thursday 5 April 2018

“'I hope there are no water snakes,' I thought as my feet sunk into the muddy bottom of the river. I was balancing six kilos of camera equipment on my head with one hand, trying to keep my balance with the other, chest deep in the water, and all I could think about were the snakes," writes photographer Stefanie Glinski, of her journey to a seasonal cattle camp in South Sudan, where she is based.

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A convoy transporting Syrian civilians and rebel fighters drives past destroyed buildings in Arbin in Eastern Ghouta as they are evacuated from the opposition enclave to the village of Qalaat al-Madiq, some 45 kilometres northwest of the central city of H AFP / Abdulmonam Eassa

Escape from war

Abdulmonam Eassa Friday 30 March 2018

"Here, you start feeling like you can start all over," writes photographer Abdulmonam Eassa following his escape from Eastern Ghouta, a rebel-held region in Syria under a government offensive for weeks.

"I went into a clothes shop, I bought new clothes. I immediately threw away the ones I had been wearing. Not because they were dirty, but because they held memories I’d rather forget. Bad memories."

Abdulmonam Eassa is a photographer who has been one of the key contributors to AFP’s coverage of the Syrian government’s offensive on Eastern Ghouta.

His last weeks in the enclave were spent going from town to town as regime forces advanced, cowering in basements from shelling and air strikes, and documenting as much as he could with photos, videos and text, before finally making it out to a new life and a new beginning.

Here’s his account.

 

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(FILES) In this file photo taken on December 05, 2016, Sudan, the last known male of the northern white rhinoceros subspecies, grazes in his paddock, at the Ol Pejeta conservancy in Laikipia County -- at the foot of Mount Kenya -- that is home to the plan AFP / Tony Karumba

The last rhino standing

Tony Karumba Friday 30 March 2018

"Ol Pejeta was somber the last time I was there. It was beautiful, under the cover of tender greenery that's characteristic of the onset of Kenya's rainy season," writes Tony Karumba, a photographer based in Nairobi.

"But gloom hung in the air. Anyone who had had a chance to interact with Sudan, the world's last male northern white rhino who had just died, could sense it. His handlers, as polite and welcoming as always, seemed beside themselves."

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  • AFP / Olivier Morin
  • AFP / Olivier Morin
  • AFP / Olivier Morin
  • AFP / Olivier Morin

The addicts

Olivier Morin Thursday 29 March 2018

"It’s an addiction. It’s not even that you want to come back. You need to come back," writes Olivier Morin, AFP's chief photo editor for France.

"Cold is like that. You become hooked, like a junkie. And this is the only reasonable place to get your high (it takes too long to get to the others). So this year, I decided to take portraits of other addicts like me. Because for once, it got really cold."

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