Zhytomyr.
They were getting ready for bed. Oleksander told his son to put away the Ipad. His wife Ljudmyla was already under the covers.That’s when the Russian missile struck. Killing his wife and two other women in the close knit neighborhood. The number of civilian casualties is climbing as the Russian attacks intensify.
The woman that came in from the cold.
Ten years ago Anna Ardin contacted the police and accused Julian Assange for sexually assaulting her. For ten years she has been silent, awaiting the justice system to run its course. Julian Assange fled the country and evaded the evaluation by the courts. Anna Ardin paid a high price. For ten years she lived with body guards and was harassed extensively. Now she is silent no more. With her book ”In the shadow of Julian Assange” she tells it like it was. Like empowered victims of sexual violence all over the world, she now owns her own story - far from the spin of her accused.
Aleksandr Lukasjenko has called Hrodna ”the most unreliable place in all of Belarus”.
The city of 370 000, close to the Polish border has become a symbol for the dissent against the dictator. When demonstrators regularly gathers at the feet of the large Lenin statue a police loudspeaker immediately announces that the assembly is illegal and threaten with arrest. The people answer by singing folksongs.
The fact one person’s floor is the ceiling of another is very palpable during these Corona-social-distancing days. Especially when your neighbor happens to be Ulla Ryman, a professional musician.
When her normal workplace, the Konsert hall in Stockholm. Sweden more or less is closed her small one room apartment is turned into a rehearsal studio.
Ulla has just come back from her work as a volunteer for the Charity organization Stadsmissionen where she delivers food to isolated old people. She loves the work.
”Music is a fantastic force, but its not like we are saving lives. No man lives in a vacuum. It’s fascinating how good you can feel when you do something for another human being, without expecting anything in return.
The girl in the blue plastic tub is about to die. Her name is Mado Kwalya, she is four years old and she weighs ten kilograms. The pediatrician John Peter Mulindwa is certain. The severely malnutrition girl with die, at least with the lack of care available at the Shabunda hospital. Mado is far from alone. There are five million children suffering from malnutrition in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
12 out of 100 children in DRC die of malnourishment before they are five years old. In one of the worlds, potentially, richest countries. Thanks to issue being raised with the staff at Panzi hospital in Bukavu and the Swedish NGO Läkarmissionen, Mado was evacuated and her life saved the next by an emergency flight by Nick Frey at the Mission Aviation Fellowship. Two months later Mado celebrated her birthday.
She turned five years old.
DRC Ebola, hope and despair, november 2019
The efforts to contain the ebola epidemic in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been successful so far. In the last week, there were 7 cases of Ebola in the country, down from a peak of over 120 per week in April 2019. However renewed violence in the area affected by ebola has hampered the work and creating fears of a renewed surge of contamination.
Two recent attacks have killed 4 workers responding to the Ebola outbreak and injured 5 others. The dead is a member of a vaccination team, two drivers and a police officer. Earlier this month in the town of Lwemba, Ituri province, attackers killed an Ebola response community health worker and left his wife critically injured before burning down their home. The victim was also a reporter for a community radio station, helping to raise Ebola awareness. Since the start of the year, WHO has documented more than 300 attacks that have caused six deaths and 70 injuries to health care workers and patients.
Gaza, Nusseirat 2012
A few hours before the final cease fire agreement was going into effect an Israeli missile hit a narrow alley in the village of Nusseirat. A piece of shrapnel penetrated a thin metal door and struck four year old Riham Al-Nabateen in the head. Killing her instantly.
Her father collapses on the way to the cemetery.
Every day, fifteen to twenty women in Sweden are diagnosed with cancer. One part of their treatment is of course psychological. At Karolinska Hospital the project “Look Good Feel Better” turned 10 years old. More than 10 000 women have attended their courses that are sponsored by local companies and free of charge.
Election rally i northern Iraq. A local policeman tries in vain to persuade a kurdish man to step down from the roof of the fragile players box at the Suleymania stadium. First part of a four page spread in Dagens Nyheter, Sweden.
The guns are silent and there are no more bodies floating downstream from Mosul. First part of a four page spread in Dagens Nyheter, Sweden.
Ukraine.
School number 57 in Donetsk was filled with children, teachers and parents celebrating the start of a new school year when a rocket fired from the front exploded. Andrej Grebonkin the biology teacher, a janitor and a father of one of the student was killed. Pavel, the brother of Andrejs wife Natalja arrived, thinking that Andrej was alive. When the school headmaster called her, he was still breathing but he died soon thereafter.
The war in Donbass have killed more than 13 000 people according to the UN. With no end in sight.
Stockholm november 2021
The Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven handed in his resignation papers today. He has been the leader of the Social Democratic party of Sweden for nine years and Prime minister for seven. It was during his regular summer speech in august that he suddenly broke the news that he was stepping down, and potentially paving the way for Sweden to have its first female Prime minister in his successor Magdalena Andersson. He is looking forward to a life where suits and ties are less frequent and to spent much more time with his wife Ulla.
“She is the love of my life.”
He also looks forward to build a new sauna in the couple’s summer house in the north of Sweden. Kjell Stefan Löfven has made quite a career in his life. He is 64 years old and originally he is a welder by profession.
Bihac, Bosnia
Abbas Khan has a cigarette as afternoon turns into evening. It’s freezing cold. Iqbal Khan, Satwan Danish and Hussein Ali warms hands and feet by the fire. They are all trapped in a humanitarian cul-de-sac on their way north, toward the European Union countries. Abbas Khan is 18 years old and has been here two years, trying to cross the border thirty five times. The Croat police push him back every time. Sometimes violently.
The local Red Cross estimate that there are 1500 refugees in the camps and 500 living in abandoned buildings.
Velika Kladusa, Bosnia
Running from persecution and death in Afghanistan. Jawid Zafari worked for an American company and the Taliban regime is actively hunting people with the same background. He is fleeing for his life.
It has taken the Zafari family five months to reach Bosnia. They travelled through Iran, Turkey, Greece, Northmacedonia, and Serbia and have spent their life savings on food and people-smugglers. Today they are starting their last long walk, toward the Croatian border, in the hope that the Croatian police will let them through. If all goes well they will be placed in a transit camp in Zagreb – the last stop before the final destination Germany. Jawid is hopeful, in spite of the stories from other refugees about brutal pushbacks by the police.
“Maybe they will be kinder to a family with small children?”