SIRNAK, TURKEY – NOVEMBER 20, 2018: Ruins of houses destroyed during violent clashes between Turkish government forces and Kurdish armed groups associated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in 2015 - 2016, as part of the ongoing Turkish-Kurdish conflict. The military operations against the rebels put the Kurdish-dominated Sirnak under a curfew for nine months and damaged more than 2,000 buildings, leaving residents homeless. Rubble and bullet holes are still visible until today.
DIYARBAKIR, TURKEY – MARCH 21, 2019: Kurdish people celebrating Newroz, the traditional New Year in Kurdish culture, which usually occurs on 21 March. In Turkey, Newroz is largely considered a symbol of Kurdish identity, as public celebration was banned for decades until 2005. In recent years, the Newroz celebration in Diyarbakir attracts around one million participants and has become a platform for political messages.
HEWRAMAN-TAKHT, IRAN – JANUARY 31, 2019: An old Kurdish man preparing a traditional soup called “hloshine teshe”, which is made once a year to celebrate the Pir Shalyar Festival, a mid-winter festival held annually in the Kurdish village of Hewraman-Takht in Iranian Kurdistan. The recipe has been passed down in the old man’s family, which is solely responsible for cooking this soup for centuries.
HEWRAMAN-TAKHT, IRAN – JANUARY 30, 2019: A Kurdish boy wearing traditional Kurdish costume (“kavapantol”) and a jacket made of brown felt with pointed shoulders (“kolobal” or "faranji"), which is a distinctive costume of Kurdish men in Hewraman Valley of Iranian Kurdistan.
BYARA, IRAQI KURDISTAN – SEPTEMBER 13, 2019: A man praying inside the sleeping hall of “khanaqa” (a building for gatherings of Sufi Muslims) at the Islamic School of Byara. It welcomes everyone from all walks of life, including non-Muslims, to eat and sleep while staying in this small Kurdish village close to the border with Iran.
MARIVAN, IRAN – FEBRUARY 2, 2019: Young Kurds shooting air guns on the promenade along the Zrebar Lake.
PALANGAN, IRAN – MAY 22, 2018: On the way to Hewraman Valley, Iranian Kurdistan.
SILVAN, TURKEY – MARCH 28, 2019: Teahouses serve as an important public space for Kurdish men, second only to mosques. Every neighborhood - whether urban or rural - has at least one teahouse, where local people come for a glass of tea, discussing the issues of the day, or playing dominoes with friends.
DOLAW, IRAN – FEBRUARY 5, 2019: Kurdish schoolgirls getting ready to practice volleyball. This area has only one school serving primary and secondary education. Every day, teaching staff has to commute for one and a half hours from Sanandaj, the capital of Kordestan Province, to teach here.
ERBIL, IRAQI KURDISTAN – SEPTEMBER 15, 2019: A secondhand bookstall in the downtown of Erbil, the capital and business center of Iraqi Kurdistan.
HALABJA, IRAQI KURDISTAN – SEPTEMBER 10, 2019: Mannequins at the Halabja Memorial Monument showing a tragic scene of the chemical attack carried out on 16 March 1988 by Saddam Hussein’s regime under a systematic ethnical cleansing program against the Kurds known as the Anfal Genocide. The attack killed at least 5,000 people, and 7,000 people were injured or suffered long-term illness. Most of them were civilians.
SIRNAK, TURKEY – NOVEMBER 20, 2018: A mother and her child walking pass a residential area which was a battleground between Turkish government forces and PKK rebels from 2015 - 2016. The clashes destroyed residential buildings completely. Rubble and bullet holes are still visible until today. In the background are new apartment buildings built by the Turkish government for affected families.
HEWRAMAN-TAKHT, IRAN – MAY 26, 2018: Mountains are important geographical and symbolic features of the landlocked Kurdistan, as a famous Kurdish proverb says that the “Kurds have no friends but the mountains”. The mountainous terrain contributes to cultural diversities among the Kurds, who are divided into tribes and speak their own dialects. In this photo is Sabah, an Arabic teacher of Hewrami tribe, looking at Zagros Mountains that forms the backbone of Hewraman, a region encompassing rugged areas of Iranian and Iraqi Kurdistan.
