Marcus Bleasdale has spent more than seven years covering the
brutal conflict within the borders of the Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC). The work was published in his book One Hundred Years
of Darkness, which is recognised in the best photojournalism books
of the year (2002) by Photo District News in the USA.
He is widely published in the UK, Europe and the USA in
publications such as The Sunday Times Magazine, The Telegraph
Magazine, Geo, Stern, The New Yorker, TIME, Newsweek and National
Geographic Magazine.
Marcus has received acclaim for his work over the years, including
several first prizes in Picture of the Year and NPPA awards. In
2004 he was awarded the UNICEF Photographer of the Year Award, the
3P Photographer Award and the Alexia Foundation Grant. He exhibited
in New York at Moving Walls 2005 and was awarded the Open Society
Institute Distribution Grant 2005 for his work with Human Rights
Watch. Marcus’s images have also been chosen by PDN as one of the
most iconic of the 21st century.
In 2005 Marcus was named Magazine Photographer of the Year by POYi.
In 2006 he was awarded the prestigious Olivier Rebbot Award for
best foreign reporting in the USA, and he won a World Press Award
for his work on street children in Congo.
In 2007 he was awarded, together with Human Rights Watch, a grant
by the Open Society Institute to continue his work on justice and
accountability in the DRC. Also in 2007 he was awarded $50,000 by
the Freedom of Expression Institute in Norway to continue his work
on the effects of oil exploration on populations around the
world.
Marcus continues to cover those issues underreported and forgotten
by today’s media.
Works
Chad / Darfur
The Darfur region of Sudan, Eastern Chad and north-eastern CAR are
experiencing one of the most serious human rights disasters in the
world today.
For more than three years, Sudanese government forces and
government-backed ethnic militias known as Janjaweed have committed
attacks of extraordinary brutality against civilians including:
massacres, executions, acts of sexual violence, the burning of
towns and villages, and the forced displacement of over two million
people.
Many of the displaced now live in refugee camps along Darfur's
border with Chad. Thousands of people have been killed and millions
more are at risk.
For more images and information visit:
VII Photo: http://www.viiphoto.com/showstory.php?nID=631
Marcus Bleasdale: http://marcusbleasdale.com/features
The Rape of a Nation
And finally, however painful it may be for us delicate souls, and
however intractable the Congo’s ills may appear, and however
drained of compassion we may feel in the face of Darfur and other
hells, we must never turn away our gaze. Indeed, we have a moral
duty to look, which is what this book is telling us. To observe
pain only through the prisms of the boardroom and the computer
screen is to sever the vital artery between compassion and
action.
The continuing human tragedy of Congo is not a statistic. It is a
continuing human tragedy. It is fourteen hundred and fifty
tragedies every day. It is countless more than that if you include
the orphaned, the bereaved, the widowed, and all the ripples of
truncated lives that spread from a single death. It is you and me
and our children and our parents, if we had had the bad luck to be
born into the world this book portrays.
“But Congo has one secret that is hard to pass on if you
haven’t learned it at first hand. Look carefully and you will find
it in these pages: a gaiety of spirit and a love of life that, even
in the worst of times, leave the pampered Westerner moved and
humbled beyond words.” - John le Carre
For more images and information visit:
VII Photo: http://www.viiphoto.com/showstory.php?nID=974
Marcus Bleasdale: http://marcusbleasdale.com/features
Rape as a War Crime
In the fertile hills of eastern Congo (DRC), the region's women
tell tales of war crimes more cruel than others can imagine. They
are angry with brutal rebels groups, Rwandans, the national army,
mineral companies and the United Nations.
Most of the women bear personal account on rapes, kidnappings and
fistula as a result of guns being shoved up their wombs. These
rural women offer graphic details on what they went through. Many
report being kidnapped and used as prostitutes for the rebels over
many months. Only to be thrown back into society when they suffer
fistula as a result of childbirth. Last year in North Kivu alone
there were 30,000 reported rapes. The actual number is thought to
be six times that.
A church wrote recently that “like the fabric that these women
adorn, everyday is the kind of rape they have been subjected to.
There is gang rape, incestuous rape, HIV/AIDS infected rape,
reproductive organ destructive rape and death rape. All these women
have suffered so much and their lives are a contradiction to the
bright clothes, matching bags and colourful scarves they
wear.”
The women, however, all agree that enough is enough. They ask that
their stories be heard and ask that they be left to till their
fertile land, run their projects, sing their songs, worship and
just enjoy peace as they reconstruct their society. Their specific
plea is for those who were raped and violated to receive trauma and
counseling.
For more images and information visit:
VII Photo: http://www.viiphoto.com/showstory.php?nID=642
Child Soldiers
In more than 20 countries around the world, children are direct
participants in war. Denied a childhood and often subjected to
horrific violence, an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 children are
serving as soldiers for both rebel groups and government forces in
current armed conflicts. These young combatants participate in all
aspects of contemporary warfare. They wield AK-47s and M-16s on the
front lines of combat, serve as human mine detectors, participate
in suicide missions, carry supplies, and act as spies, messengers
or lookouts.
Physically vulnerable and easily intimidated, children typically
make obedient soldiers. Many are abducted or recruited by force,
and often compelled to follow orders under threat of death. Others
join armed groups out of desperation. As society breaks down during
conflict, leaving children no access to school, driving them from
their homes, or separating them from family members, many children
perceive armed groups as their best chance for survival. Others
seek escape from poverty or join military forces to avenge family
members who have been killed.
For more images and information visit:
VII Photo: http://www.viiphoto.com/showstory.php?nID=638
We Made a Promise – Never Again? (Tutsi and
Hutu Tensions in Congo)
Fourteen years after the Rwandan genocide, Hutus and Tustsi ethnic
tension overflows in neighboring Congo. 250,000 people have been
displaced over the past weeks and Hutu militia, government soldiers
and Tutsi warlords battle against each other in the hills of Kivu
province. The international community watches silently.
A shaky ceasefire between the Congolese army and Nkunda’s troops
fell apart in late August and skirmishes between them have
continued.
Nkunda, who leads the dissident soldiers, says he is defending the
interests of Congolese Tutsi, a minority group of which he is a
member. He claims that the Tutsi of North Kivu, where he is based,
will lack adequate protection if he permits his troops to be fully
integrated into the national army and deployed to posts elsewhere
in Congo.
His forces have also fought FDLR combatants, many of whom are
Rwandan Hutu or members of Congolese groups related to the Hutu. At
times the FDLR have fought against Congolese army troops but on
other occasions, they have cooperated with soldiers of the
government army. In recent operations, FDLR were said to be
fighting with government troops against Nkunda.
In addition to killing and abducting scores of civilians, soldiers
have engaged in widespread rape and in the looting and destruction
of property. All forces used child soldiers and some commanders
tried to prevent international child protection agencies from
locating and removing children them from their ranks.
For more images and information visit:
Marcus Bleasdale: http://marcusbleasdale.com/features