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Residents surveyed the damage to their homes while emergency services worked to extinguish fires after a missile strike hit a residential building overnight in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Monday, October 10, 2022. Several civilians were killed, and another remained missing. Zaporizhzhia has been repeatedly struck in the past few days, with another strike killing at least 17 people on October 9. Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Monday, October 10, 2022. © Nicole Tung / VII.
Anastasiia Korovkina, 6, played with her father Kostiantyn Korovkin, 38, in the shelter they have resided in since April, in Lyman, Ukraine, on Saturday, December 31, 2022. The shelter housed nearly 60 people at one point, according to residents, and is now home to 20 people who remain. Since Lyman was retaken in early October, many residents continue living underground as shells fired by Russian forces continue to target the key railway hub. Electricity and water have only been restored to some areas. © Nicole Tung / VII.
A missile hit a large residential building in Dnipro, Ukraine, on Saturday, January 14, 2023. The official toll so far states that 5 have been killed, while 60 have been injured. © Nicole Tung.
Ukrainian soldiers suffering from concussions, likely caused by artillery exploding, were given treatment by medics of the 59th Brigade, while being transported from the mid-way point between the frontline and stabilization point, near Avdiivka, Ukraine, on Sunday, October 22, 2023. Fighting continued around the embattled city of Avdiivka as Russian forces launched another attack on October 19th following their October 10th assault in an attempt to encircle the city to capture it. © Nicole Tung / VII.
Friends and family mourned during the funeral of Ukrainian solider Dmytro Konobas, 43, while his unit member paid his respects, in Synyak, Ukraine, on Monday, May 15, 2023. Mr. Konobas was a widely-loved resident of Synyak, who helped villagers by bringing them food while at least 200 people sheltered in a school during the Russian occupation last year. He joined the military after the village was retaken by Ukraine, and was killed on May 7 in the Luhansk region. © Nicole Tung.
Ukrainian soldiers are seen escorting a captive, named Aleksandr, 69, on to the west bank of the Siverskyi Donets River, near Lyman, Ukraine, on Tuesday, September 27, 2022. Ukrainian soldiers captured him on the frontline, and believe he is a spy for Russian forces. Ukrainian forces recaptured the resort village of Szczurowe, on the eastern side of the Siverskyi Donets River, 10 days ago, and are attempting to recapture the town of Lyman from the south and western sides. © Nicole Tung.
Investigators exhume the bodies at a site of 445 mostly unmarked and marked graves, as well as one mass grave in Izium, Ukraine, on Friday, September 16, 2022. © Nicole Tung.
Doctors and medical staff are seen treating an injured soldier at a military field hospital in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, on Saturday, October 1, 2022. The service member was hit with shrapnel from artillery fire. © Nicole Tung.
A resident taking shelter at the severely damaged Zymnensky Female Monastery walked through the courtyard, as seen in Sviatohirsk, Ukraine, on Monday, October 3, 2022. Part of Sviatohirsk was occupied by Russian forces until September 12, when the Ukrainian military recaptured the town. © Nicole Tung.
Young patients of Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital, who had their faces painted, are seen in the shelter of the hospital complex in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday, June 1, 2023. Okhmatdyt planned festivities and activities for their former and current patients - which include war-wounded children - to mark International Children’s Day. The staff made the decision to move the event to the hospital’s shelter, located in the oncology ward, after concerns for patient safety following the previous night’s strikes and continued air raid sirens earlier today. Children in Kyiv marked International Children’s Day on Thursday, following another night of attacks, one of which struck a children’s polyclinic, killing 3 people including a 9-year-old girl. Kyiv mayor Vitaliy Klitschko canceled all public children’s events, but privately held festivities continued in Kyiv’s largest children’s hospital, Okhmatdyt - where activities for children were moved to the shelter for fear of further attacks - as well as outdoors at a park run by Poruch Volunteer Union, where children danced, and did arts and crafts. © Nicole Tung.
Volunteers removed the body of Vitaliy Konovalov from a shed behind his home in Avdiivka, Ukraine, on Monday, October 23, 2023. Vitaliy’s wife Khamdia Konovalova, told police officers of the White Angels that he had died by alcohol poisoning the day before. The officers said he had turned to heavy drinking because of the stress of living under constant shelling. As the sale of alcohol is illegal in eastern Ukraine, Mr. Konovalov was believed to have drunk antiseptic instead. Ms. Konovalova, whose home has also been shelled and damaged, was evicted by the White Angels. Russian forces launched a large scale attack on October 10 and then again on October 19 in an attempt to fully surround and capture the eastern city of Avdiivka, a heavily fortified city with a pre-war population of approximately 32,000. The city remains surrounded on three sides, with Russians having made only marginal gains over the past few weeks, resulting in high casualties. Only about 1,600 civilians remain, with most having been evacuated as the city is under constant shelling from artillery, and under fire by Russian drones, Grad rockets, and guided rockets. © Nicole Tung.
Residents surveyed the damage to their homes while emergency services worked to extinguish fires after a missile strike hit a residential building overnight in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Monday, October 10, 2022. Several civilians were killed, and another remained missing. Zaporizhzhia has been repeatedly struck in the past few days, with another strike killing at least 17 people on October 9. Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Monday, October 10, 2022. © Nicole Tung / VII.
Soldiers of the 43rd Heavy Artillery Brigade, which are part of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, operated a 2S7 Pion cannon, firing shells towards Russian fortifications inside the city of Kreminna, from an area west of Kreminna, Ukraine, on Saturday, December 31, 2022. Fighting has surged between the Ukrainian military and Russian forces as they battle for the city of Kreminna, Russia has occupied since the summer. Kreminna is a gateway to two much larger cities nearby, Sieverodonetsk and Lysychansk, which are both key industrial centers. © Nicole Tung.
A woman was comforted by a relative as the body of her mother was retrieved from the rubble in Antakya, Turkey, on Wednesday, February 15, 2023, following last Monday’s earthquakes which have now claimed the lives of 40,000 people in Turkey and Syria. © Nicole Tung.
Displaced residents, taking shelter in a tent camp, lined up for a clothing and other aid during a distribution in Iskenderun, Turkey, on Tuesday, February 14, 2023. © Nicole Tung / VII.
The bodies of three people recovered from the rubble are seen near a site where rescuers continued searching for people, in Antakya, Turkey, on Tuesday, February 14, 2023. More than 40,000 people have died and an estimated 200,000 people have been evacuated to nearby provinces, according to official numbers, following two major earthquakes last week in Turkey’s south and south east. © Nicole Tung.
Gulbahar Bicer, 35, holds her son Deniz, 5, while her other son Ali, 10, tends watches fire outside their tent shelter in Iskenderun, Turkey, on Thursday, February 16, 2023. The single mother of the children, Gulbahar, lost her home in the major earthquakes which hit Turkey and Syria on February 6. Ms. Bicer says that her application for a tent from a Turkish organization is still being processed. In the mean time, she is caring for her three children and mother-in-law by herself, living in a tent on the side of a main road in Iskenderun. Ms. Bicer says her son Deniz is experiencing panic attacks after the earthquake, and keeping her children clean without running water or electricity is the biggest challenge. © Nicole Tung.
A protestor throws a tear gas canister back at the riot police in Tsuen Wan neighborhood in Hong Kong, S.A.R. on August 25, 2019 following the end of a rally in which thousands participated. Over the last 12 weeks, violence has escalated as protesters attempt to find new ways to keep their demands alive. Since June 2019, large scale protests have taken place in the special administrative region of Hong Kong. Initially, the protests were held to demand the withdrawal of the extradition bill that would have allowed suspects from Hong Kong to be extradited to stand trial in China, but have grown into pro-democracy demonstrations in a rebuke to the local government's handling of the crisis. It has also expanded to include social grievances and a criticism of China's encroachment on the freedoms of Hong Kong people. Over the past 12 weeks, protestors have repeatedly marched in rallies to reiterate their five main demands including a full withdrawal of the controversial extradition bill, the retraction of the government's characterization of protests as “riots" as well as calling for the unconditional release of all arrested protesters, universal suffrage, and an inquiry by an independent commission into all events since June. Protestors also voiced their concerns over the excessive force used by police against the demonstrators, which have also affected regular citizens in the city. © Nicole Tung.
Thousands of protestors partake in an anti-government rally on Chinese National Day, in Hong Kong, China, on October 1, 2019, as both peaceful and increasingly violent demonstrations have rocked the city into its fourth month. Since June 2019, large scale protests have taken place in the special administrative region of Hong Kong. Initially, the protests were held to demand the withdrawal of the extradition bill that would have allowed suspects from Hong Kong to be extradited to stand trial in China, but have grown into pro-democracy demonstrations in a rebuke to the local government's handling of the crisis. It has also expanded to include social grievances and a criticism of China's encroachment on the freedoms of Hong Kong people. Over the past 12 weeks, protestors have repeatedly marched in rallies to reiterate their five main demands including a full withdrawal of the controversial extradition bill, the retraction of the government's characterization of protests as ‚Äúriots" as well as calling for the unconditional release of all arrested protesters, universal suffrage, and an inquiry by an independent commission into all events since June. Protestors also voiced their concerns over the excessive force used by police against the demonstrators, which have also affected regular citizens in the city. © Nicole Tung.
A fighter with the US backed Syrian Democratic Forces walks through the destroyed town of As Susah in Syria, on February 16, 2019. ISIS was ousted from As Susah only weeks before, as the extremist group retreated into the last sliver of territory in Baghouz along the Euphrates in south eastern Syria after a months long campaign was launched to defeat the Islamic State in Syria. While the group has lost its territory, it is already laying the groundwork for an insurgency. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with the support of the US-led coalition have been in a weeks-long campaign to drive out the last of the Islamic State fighters in Baghouz, who now control less than a 1.5 square mile of territory along a small portion of the Euphrates River near the Syrian border with Iraq. According to some of the civilians, ISIS blocked people from leaving the village, as fighting, the lack of food and clean water prompted dozens to leave. © Nicole Tung.
Schoolchildren exit a bus in western Mosul, Iraq. Since Mosul was declared liberated by the Iraqi forces four months ago, some schools have reopened in the city where many children have missed years of their education. November 2017. ©Nicole Tung/VII
Familiy members mourn in front of the coffin of an SDF fighter who was killed during the Hasakah prison break clashes, as seen in Qamishli, Syria, on Wednesday, February 2, 2022. The funerals for the 12 men of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic forces were one of several ceremonies taking place during the week to bury the 121 fighters’ deaths. © Nicole Tung / VII.
Children sort through waste for plastic and metal scrap to collect before selling, at a dumping ground opposite the Sahel al Banat camp for internally displaced persons in Raqqa governorate on Saturday, February 5, 2022. Many of the camp’s residents had been there for at least one to two years, with some having fled from areas under the Syrian government’s control. The camp houses several thousand people, living in derelict conditions with minimal support from aid organizations, and no school for older children. Most women and children work in sorting waste at the dumping ground opposite the camp, while the men work as shepherds raising livestock to sell. The area’s high rates of poverty have made the population susceptible to recruitment by ISIS militants, according to the Syrian Democratic Forces, who recently arrested 27 people with suspected links to ISIS in Raqqa’s eastern countryside, including in this camp, and other villages. Last month, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria launched its largest attack since their territorial defeat in Baghouz nearly three years earlier, on the Ghwaryan prison in Hasakah, Syria. In a surprise attack that appears well-planned, dozens of Islamic State members on the outside launched a prison break to free ISIS leaders, it is believed. The extremist group has been laying the groundwork for their resurgence since 2019, using sleeper cells in sparsely populated areas particularly in Deir Ezzor, Hasakah, and Raqqa Governorates to stage attacks on security forces, instilling fear in the local population, while recruiting people by exploiting the economic frailty of communities who have been ravaged by war. By staging hit and run attacks on bases, checkpoints, and assassinating local council leaders, ISIS’s omnipresence is felt in the region despite not physically existing in any one place. © Nicole Tung.
Teenage boys are seen working at a makeshift oil refinery near Haddad in northeast Syria on Saturday, August 7, 2021. Northeast Syria, and particularly Hasakeh province, holds Syria’s richest oil fields. The ad hoc nature of the refining process, in which crude oil is made into diesel and other products, causes grave environmental damage but also severely impacts the health of the residents living nearby as well as the workers at the refineries because of the air pollution. An economic crisis, a grinding war, and few job opportunities push many boys, some who are as young as 8, to start working in the refineries despite the extreme hazards of breathing in toxic fumes, and being exposed to high temperatures, and fires, which often causes fatal accidents. © Nicole Tung.
Fighters with the Free Syrian Army fire at regime forces on the front line in Qastal Al Harami, a section of the Old City in Aleppo, Syria, on Tuesday, November 6, 2012. Equipped with semi-automatic guns and few ways to fight back the Syrian Army, FSA rebels have, over the last year, resorted to making their own weapons. © Nicole Tung.
Life after ISIS: Men bathe in thermal baths in Hammam al Alil two days after Iraqi forces liberated the town from ISIS as they retreat further into Mosul. As the offensive to retake Mosul continues, over 40,000 civilians have been internally displaced, straining already overloaded camps in the region. Hammam al Alil, under ISIS control for over two years, has seen the return of a trickle of civilians to their homes despite improvised explosive devices left behind and sporadic fighting between ISIS recruits and Iraqi forces. November 2016. © Nicole Tung.
Tariq, left, Nisreen, and their five-year-old daughter Roslyn are seen on the day-long bus ride from Athens to the Greek-Macedonian border in the far north as they continue their journey from Syria to Germany on December 19, 2015. © Nicole Tung / VII.
Libyan men, many of whom were regular civilians just days before, picked up weapons and heavy machinery at the beginning of March to fight against Ghaddafi loyalists outside of Ajdabiya on March 2, 2011 in eastern Libya. © Nicole Tung.
Libyan rebels run away from sniper fire during a series of heavy fighting against government forces in the final battle for Sirte, Libya, on October 7, 2011, days before Muammar Gaddafi's capture and death. © Nicole Tung.
Ana and her husband Yuri measure the time between her contractions as Ana goes into labor at a maternity hospital’s makeshift bunker in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Wednesday, March 2, 2022. Expectant and new mothers have been moved underground to protect them from Russian attacks and fighting that have struck the city in recent days. The war has expanded in recent days as the Russian military advanced into towns in the Kyiv Oblast region, north west of Kyiv city as it edges its way towards the capital, as well as larger cities including Kharkiv, Kherson, and Mariupol’. Russia launched a full scale military invasion of its neighboring country Ukraine, on February 24, triggering a mass exodus of over one million citizens and residents across multiple borders, and sending civilians underground into shelters. The casualties are mounting with no signs of an end to this war. © Nicole Tung.
Yaroslav, in camouflage, a Ukrainian soldier, looks on as the coffin of his father is lowered into the cremation chamber following his funeral service in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday, March 15, 2022. Yaroslav’s father Roman, who was also a service member of the Ukrainian military, died during recent fighting on the outskirts of Kyiv. Russia launched a full scale military invasion of its neighboring country Ukraine, on February 24, triggering a mass exodus of over one million citizens and residents across multiple borders, and sending civilians underground into shelters. In Kyiv, bombardments of residential buildings in the early hours of each day are become the norm, while towns on the capital’s outskirts remain heavily contested between Ukrainian and Russian forces. The casualties are mounting with no signs of an end to this war. © Nicole Tung.
Location
Istanbul, Turkey
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Nicole Tung

Contributing Photographer

Nicole Tung is a freelance photojournalist. She graduated from New York University in 2009 after studying journalism and history and freelances for international publications and NGOs, primarily covering the Middle East. Her work often explores those most affected by conflict and the consequences of war, including migration across the Middle East, post-traumatic stress in Native American veterans, human rights abuses, and women’s rights. In recent years, she has followed the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, the legacy of ISIS, and in 2022, documented the Russian invasion of Ukraine for Harper’s Magazine, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. She is based in Istanbul, Turkey.

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