Wings at the Speed of Sound

A customer buys shoes from a street vendor in Raqqa, Syria. Photo: Delil Souleiman/AFP/Getty Images.

Cat-Man

Ambulance driver and paramedic Mohammed Alaa al-Jaleel is known as the Aleppo CatMan. His sanctuary in the rebel-held town of Kfar Naya in the A’zaz District, Aleppo Governorate, Syria looks after 170 cats that were abandoned when their owners fled the war. Photo: Omar Haj Kadour/AFP/Getty Images

The Invisible Houses

Aleppo, Syria: A resident rides past destroyed buildings as people try to return to normal life a year after the fall of the city. Photo: Susan Schulman/Barcroft Images.

Clothespins

Daraa, Syria: Children’s toys hang from a laundry line near a group of tents. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images.

The Bulliest Dozer

Donald Trump authorized a cruise missile attack on a Syrian airfield in the hope of reassuring his GOP detractors that he doesn’t depend at all upon Russia’s strategic agenda. And, if nothing else, his bully act drew an angry response from Russia, which – quite rightly – described the strike as an “aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law”.

Muskoxen stampeding over frozen tundra. Photo: Eric Pierre/Unforgettable Behaviour/NHM.

Underground

Idlib, Syria: Men bury the bodies of victims of a suspected toxic gas attack in Khān Shaykhūn. International outrage is mounting over a suspected chemical attack has killed 70 people so far. Photo: Fadi Al-Halabi/AFP/Getty Images.

The House with Crying Windows

Aleppo, Syria: Mohammad Mohiedine Anis, 70, smokes his pipe and listens to music in his destroyed bedroom in the formerly rebel-held al-Shaar neighbourhood. Photo: Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images.

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

Lisbeth Zornig Andersen and her husband, Mikael, outside the court, in Nykøbing Falster, Denmark, where they were fined for helping Syrian refugees to travel through Denmark. Photo: Per Rasmussen/AP.

• Lisbeth Zornig Andersen, “I was prosecuted for helping Syrian refugees”, The Guardian, December 20, 2016

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

Izmir, Turkey: Syrian refugee Firas el Jasmin, 25, struggled to find work in Turkey because of his disability, so took to the streets with his son to collect recyclable material which he sells on to support his family. Photo: Andrew McConnell/UNHCR.

Pheidippides

Damascus, Syria: Crowds gather for the “I Love Damascus” celebration in the city’s Umayyad Square. Photo: Omar Sanadiki/Reuters.

Heartbreaker

• Tom Phillips, Anger on streets in China as football team suffer shock defeat by war-torn Syria, The Guardian, October 7, 2016

Mahmoud Al-Mawas of Syria (L.) celebrates after scoring the winning goal against China. Photo: AFP/Getty Images.

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist Daniel Etter, whose images from Kos touched the hearts of millions last year, returned to Greece this September to photograph the islanders who feature in the new documentary short Ode to Lesvos, created by Johnnie Walker® to shine a light on the inspirational acts of compassion shown in response to the refugee crisis. [Read more].

• Daniel Etter, Ode to Lesbos, the villagers who helped refugees – in pictures, The Guardian, October 5, 2016

“We all wanted to help. It’s natural to want to help. Having babies safe in my arms is a blessing”, Maristsa Mavrapidou says of the role she and other islanders played in providing care and comfort to thousands of refugees who arrived in 2015. Mavrapidou, photographed collecting eggs from her chickens in Skala Sykamineas, was one of those who helped care for refugees. Photo: Daniel Etter.

To Be Or Not

Al-Hasakah, Syria: Blood stains the ground of a damaged wedding hall after a suicide attack on a Kurdish wedding. Photo: Rodi Said/Reuters.

The World Saved by Kids

• Kareem Shaheen, Syrian children return to school as airstrikes on Aleppo continue, The Guardian, October 2, 2016

Children climb on the rubble of a building in the Jarabulus district of Aleppo, Syria. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images.

The Other World

Gaziantep, Turkey: Syrian children wave from a vehicle at the customs gate in the Karkamış district of Gaziantep as they make their way back to Jarabulus, Syria. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images.

The Tailor from Aleppo

Jo Du had a malfunction with her dress, but Ibrahim Halil Dudu, a master tailor from Aleppo, had just moved in next door Hours before her wedding ceremony, Jo Du suffered a wardrobe malfunction – the zip on her wedding dress broke and none of her bridesmaids knew how to fix it or where to find a tailor on a Sunday. The wedding photographer, Lindsay Coulter, noticed that the man next door to the house they had rented in Guelph, Ontario, for the wedding had his garage door open and suggested that a bridesmaid run over to ask for a pair of pliers. In a serendipitous turn of events, it emerged that the neighbour, David Hobson, had been hosting a family of Syrian refugees for the past four days and that the father, Ibrahim Halil Dudu, had worked as a tailor in Aleppo for 28 years. [Read more].

• Nadia Khomami, Syrian refugee comes to the rescue of Canadian bride’s wedding dress, The Guardian, September 29, 2016

Ibrahim Halil Dudu fixing the zip on Jo Du’s wedding dress. The Syrian tailor and his family were being hosted by neighbour David Hobson and had only moved in four days previously. Photo: Lindsay Coulter Photography.

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

• Kareem Shaheen, People of Aleppo prepare for Eid festival under siege, The Guardian, September 11, 2016

The date for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha is set when a new moon is sighted. Photo: Melanie Maxwell/AP.

Aleppo, Syria: Syrian men carrying babies make their way through the rubble of destroyed buildings following a reported air strike on the rebel-held Salihin neighbourhood of the northern city of Aleppo. Photo: Ameer Alhalbi/AFP/Getty Images.

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

Medics write letter to U.S. president saying a medical facility is attacked every 17 hours by Russian-backed Syrian air force Fifteen of the last 35 doctors in rebel-held eastern Aleppo have written a letter to Barack Obama with an urgent plea for intervention to stop the bombardment of hospitals in the besieged city by the Russian-backed Syrian air force. “We do not need tears or sympathy or even prayers: we desperately need a zone free from bombing over eastern Aleppo to stop the attacks, and international action to ensure Aleppo is never besieged again”, the doctors wrote. [Read more].

• Patrick Wintour, Aleppo doctors urge U.S. intervention as Russians announce daily pause in action, The Guardian, August 11, 2016

A hospital in Aleppo, Syria, after it was hit by airstrikes. Photo: Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters.

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

珍惜你拥有的，即使你有的不多， 因为有许多一无所有的人，仍然尝试着保有微笑。 Zhēnxī nǐ yǒngyǒu de, jíshǐ nǐ yǒu de bù duō, yīnwèi yǒu xǔduō yīwúsuǒyǒu de rén, réngrán chángshìzhe bǎoyǒu wéixiào. Be happy with the little you have. There are some people with nothing who still manage to smile.

Idomeni, Greece: Children attend an English language lesson at a makeshift cultural centre in a refugee camp near the Macedonian border. Photo: Kostas Tsironis/EPA.

The Theatre of Grotowski

Damascus, Syria: A girl takes part in an activity organised by a charity group in Jobar, a rebel-held district on the eastern outskirts of the capital Damascus. Photo: Amer Almohibany/AFP/Getty Images.