Category: Civil Wars
Explore the human side of civil wars through authentic historical photographs. Witness the struggles, courage, and consequences of divided nations.
These images document key events and personal moments that shaped political and social transformations around the world.
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#44 Cambodian refugees and pro Sihanouk guerrilla along the Thai border during the rainy season before the Thai authorities and the UN could get the setup of camps to shelter them.
Rain turns the border road into a ribbon of mud, and the tree line offers only thin shelter against the downpour. Figures move through the wet haze under improvised coverings, while bundles and tarps lie heaped along the track like temporary homes. A rifle slung across one person’s back underscores how, in civil war, displacement…
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#7 View of the rue de Chezy, Neuilly Bombarded, 1871.
Across the rue de Chezy in Neuilly, the street scene has been reduced to a jagged horizon of broken masonry and splintered beams, the kind of ruin that feels both sudden and carefully recorded. In the foreground, a low wall of stone blocks and loose rubble forms a rough barrier, while behind it stand the…
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#23 The ruined interior of the Palais des Tuileries in Paris. It was destroyed in 1871 by supporters of the Commune of Paris.
Broken masonry and scorched stone frame what remains of the Palais des Tuileries, turning a once-ceremonial interior into a rough-edged shell. A classical statue still stands in its niche, strangely intact amid collapsed cornices, cracked columns, and debris piled where walls and ceilings used to meet. Through the gaping openings, daylight pours in without resistance—an…
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#10 Kids learning martial arts in a local gym, Catholic Derry, 1978
Energy ripples across the matted floor as a line of boys waits its turn, watching classmates tumble and flip in a local gym in Catholic Derry. Bare feet, borrowed-looking uniforms, and a mix of T‑shirts and martial arts jackets place the scene firmly in everyday 1970s youth culture, where discipline was learned alongside play. In…
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#13 People lie on beds and sit on the floor while a man holds a rifle in a shelter during bombings in Osijek.
Inside a cramped shelter in Osijek, everyday life is pressed into the margins of war: people lie on thin bedding and blankets, while others sit upright on the hard floor, waiting out the next round of bombings. Stacked crates and a closed door turn an ordinary storage-like room into a temporary refuge, where the smallest…
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#29 Two Bosnian Croat soldiers pass by the corpse of a Bosnian Serb soldier killed in the Croatian attack on the Serb-held town of Drvar, on August 18, 1995 in western Bosnia.
Across a pale, open hillside in western Bosnia, two armed Bosnian Croat soldiers move away from the foreground, their backs turned toward the viewer as the landscape stretches into a washed-out sky. In the grass lies the body of a Bosnian Serb soldier, motionless and partly crumpled, a stark counterpoint to the steady stride of…
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#45 The situation in Sarajevo, 1994.
Inside a stark hospital room, a wounded man lies on the floor as medical staff in white coats crouch beside him, hands moving quickly between his arm and chest. Blood-stained cloth and a makeshift stretcher frame the scene, suggesting the urgency of triage when beds, time, and supplies were all in short supply. The title,…
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#8 A girl runs through Hero’s Square on the Sarajevo frontline where residents constantly suffered heavy shelling and sniping during the siege, 1994.
Across the broken paving of Hero’s Square, a young girl sprints past an overturned car, her body angled forward as if speed itself might offer protection. Behind her, the facades of apartment blocks loom with dark, punched-out windows and scarred concrete, the everyday architecture of home transformed into a jagged backdrop of war. The title…
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#24 A woman holds a precious loaf of bread during the siege of Sarajevo, 1995.
Leaning against a stair rail, a woman steadies a large loaf of bread with both hands, her fingers spread as if to protect it from being dropped—or taken. The soft focus on her face draws attention back to the bread’s rough crust and cracked surface, turning an everyday staple into the clear subject of the…
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#40 Bosnian fighters wish each other good luck and kiss goodbye after praying at a mosque before leaving to fight on the front line, 1992.
Under the shaded colonnade of a mosque courtyard, two armed men lean in close—one whispering a last word, the other listening with a tightened jaw—before they separate for the road to the front. A kiss of farewell, part blessing and part bargain with fate, sits uneasily beside the hard geometry of slung rifles, webbing, and…