2016

Female friends and relatives mourn the 25 ethnic Hazaras who were buried in a mass grave on a hilltop on the southern outskirts of Kabul after a double suicide bombing claimed by the so-called Islamic State Khorasan Province killed more than 80 during a peaceful demonstration. Kabul, August, 2016.

Outgoing commander of American and international military forces in Afghanistan, U.S. Army General John Campbell, is hosted by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani (right) and CEO Dr. Abdullah Abdullah (left)at the Arg Palace. Gen. Campbell’s departure was soured by the mis-targeting of an MSF hospital in Kunduz only a few months prior which led to the deaths of 42 staff, patients and patient carers. Kabul, February, 2016.

At an unfinished building site now used as a temporary home in a village known as Camp Shahr Shahi, boys from some of the many families displaced because of the presence of the so-called Islamic State in the nearby district of Achin, in eastern Afghanistan. Nangarhar Province, September, 2016.

The Hindu Kush Mountains rise from the northern edge of the Kabul basin. Kabul, August, 2016.

Afghan Border Police fire mortars at Taliban positions in Babaji. Helmand Province, April, 2016.

Young boys climb a broken-down Ferris Wheel in order to give a friend a quarter of a revolution ride, in a dilapidated playground in the Lashkar Gah. The Ferris Wheel is long-defunct, with little incentive for local investors to spend money in a city which would continue to be seriously threatened by the Taliban in the years that followed. Helmand Province, April, 2016.

Drug addicts congregate in a disused building to smoke opium in Zaranj, in Afghanistan's far south west, on the border with Iran and Pakistan. Many said they picked up their addiction in Iran where they'd travelled to find work, only to be paid in drugs, or turning to the substance because they miss family or have work related injuries which the drug provides pain relief from. Nimroz Province, July, 2016.

A bodyguard of Nimroz Governor Mohammad Sami covers his face from dust, en route from Zaranj to the beginnings of the Kamal Khan dam project, which, if all goes according to plan, will be filled by the Helmand River and provide much needed water to the southern districts of Nimroz Province. The project is also a contentious issue between Kabul and Tehran, because of the large quantities of water that will be siphoned away from Iran as a result. Nimroz Province, July, 2016.

A Taliban flag seen through a sniper hole made in the wall of a school that the Afghan National Army had commandeered in Chahr-i Anjir, just outside Lashkar Gah. Chahr-i Anjir would be overrun by the Taliban weeks later, bringing the fighters within striking distance of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah. Helmand Province, March, 2016.

An Afghan commando covers regular Afghan National Army soldiers from a Taliban ambush on their compound during which, one, at left, was shot in the neck but avoided serious injury. Helmand Province, August, 2016.

Afghan National and Local Police inside a compound on the frontline in Chahr-i Anjir. A Taliban position is visible less than 100 metres away. Two weeks later, the compound was ambushed and two policemen killed. Helmand Province, April, 2016.

More affluent Kabulis break their Ramadan fast, or Iftar, at the Kabul Intercontinental Hotel. Kabul, June, 2016.

An Afghan National Army soldier has a bullet wound bandaged by a commando medic after the compound they were occupying in Chahr-i Anjir, outside Lashkar Gah, was ambushed by Taliban fighters. Helmand Province, August, 2016.

27-year-old Abdul Manan, who arrived at the Chigini drug rehabilitation clinic outside Zaranj, in far southwestern Afghanistan, five days prior, has his head re-shaved for hygiene purposes. Treatment at Chigini, which was hated by its patients, didn’t involve much more than ‘cold turkey’. It has since been closed down. Nimroz Province, July, 2016.

Young students in a classroom with no teacher at the Sayedabad school in Helmand's Nad-i Ali. The school was operating with government soldiers positioned on its roof, with a diminished number of students and teachers and with the sound of fighting regularly audible nearby. Taliban-controlled villages are only a couple of hundred metres away. Sayedabad would be overrun by the Taliban only months later. Helmand Province, March, 2016.

A fire fighter douses the smouldering ruins of a timber bazaar that caught fire 10 hours earlier. Kabul, September, 2016.

Friends and relatives of Abdul Hakim, aged between 14-16, dig his grave in Bolan, on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah. Hakim, his family said, studied at a madrassa in Chaman, on the border with Pakistan, but was killed by gunfire on the Kandahar Highway while on his way to visit family in Gereshk, north of Lashkar Gah. Helmand Province, August, 2016.

Jamshid Zafar was a young student studying at the American University of Afghanistan when, on August 24, 2016, he was amongst more than a dozen killed when attackers breached the walls of the university in the early evening, hunting them as they tried to hide or flee. Two days later, at a cemetery on Kabul's southern outskirts, he was laid to rest amongst hundreds of family, friends and well-wishers. Kabul, August, 2016.