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chapter III. Faces of War

Knife, fake flowers and Christmas decoration adorning the ceiling of a dug-out home in a refugee settlement. People cover the straw ceilings of their dug-out homes with plastic sheets and rags to stop vermin and rain. But rats, insects and snakes have found their way in. Termites are grinding through the wooden beams, and rats are eating through the mud and straw walls. People here live with the constant noises of the destruction of their own homes. Lachin Winter Grounds. Agjabedi, Azerbaijan. 2005

Knife, fake flowers and Christmas decoration adorning the ceiling of a dug-out home in a refugee settlement. People cover the straw ceilings of their dug-out homes with plastic sheets and rags to stop vermin and rain. But rats, insects and snakes have found their way in. Termites are grinding through the wooden beams, and rats are eating through the mud and straw walls. People here live with the constant noises of the destruction of their own homes. Lachin Winter Grounds. Agjabedi, Azerbaijan. 2005

Boy with a toy gun overlooking a dump. Unfinished building of a refugee settlement. Baku, Azerbaijan. 2005 Passing just ten miles from Nagorno-Karabakh, the area of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia, where a bloody conflict killed nearly twenty thousand people and created at least a million refugees, through Georgia with its pestering wounds from the break-away Abkhazia and South-Ossetia, and yet only seventy miles off the horrific conflict in Chechnya, the pipeline is laid upon a minefield of simmering war zones. These unresolved conflicts that can flare up anytime into a full-fledged war, have produced an entire nation of refugees who still continue to live in inhuman conditions of abandoned hotels, unfinished shells of buildings, train cars, dugout animal shelters, hospitals, schools and other improvised housing. Over a decade of no progress on peace settlement, these people are stuck in a limbo of muffled hopes that their lands would be liberated and they could return home. This disabling state of dependency has become their way of life, an identity of a “refugee” and not a citizen deeply rooted in their psyche is being passed on to the new generations. In the international arena these frozen conflicts have lost their urgency. Diplomatic peace talks are in the dead-end and too much oil is at stake to begin a new war. But while the West is doing oil business with benevolent dictators, millions of poverty-stricken war victims are being politically duped and their numbers are growing with another child being born into the nationhood of a refugee. Deaf-mute woman in her artillery shelled house. Front-line village of Chirahli, Agdam. Azerbaijan 2006 Mirror in an unfinished refugee building. In a few refugee families, mostly in urban areas, some youth have found a way out of the temporary housing, but the elderly have no place to go. Bibi Heybat. Azerbaijan. 2005 One hundred year old woman in Ter-Ter refugee settlement. Azerbaijan. 2005 Stolen electricity in refugee living quarters. As the Soviet Union collapsed, this building was abandoned in partially constructed form. Unfit for living, with gaping holes in floors and walls and lacking all communal services, more than 3,000 IDPs have settled here, stealing electricity from the street. Baku, Azerbaijan. 2005 Refugee children living in an unfinished building looking over a new private construction site. Baku, Azerbaijan. 2005 View from a window of an abandoned hotel in Zugdidi where about 150 Georgian refugees settled in 1997. Most refugees were displaced from Gagri, one of the most popular resort towns in former Soviet Union. Zugdidi. Georgia. 2006 Boy on a landing of an unfinished building. Baku, Azerbaijan. 2005 Boy on a clothes-line. Dug-out housing made of mud and straw, that once served as shelter during winter for shepherds and their herds is now used as permanent housing for entire families throughout the year. Lachin Winter Grounds. Agjabedi, Azerbaijan. 2005 Chechen refugee girl at home. Pankisi Gorge, Georgia. 2006 Refugee woman at home. Agjabedi, Azerbaijan. 2005 Twins in the foyer of an unfinished refugee building. In this unfinished building, children play in unlit areas, where floors and walls have gaping holes. Baku, Azerbaijan. 2005 Nodar Barateli and his sister at home. Nodar and his sister were displaced from Abkhazia and settled in a former military barracks in Senaki in 1993. Nodar’s condition prevents him from moving around; he spends most of his time at home because he does not have a wheelchair. Senaki. Georgia. 2006 Pigs resting in a hallway of Hotel Georgia, a formerly popular resort, now a dilapidated residence to over 1,500 refugees from Abkhazia, most of whom settled there in 1993. Tshaltubo. Georgia. 2006 Chechen refugee boy in the lobby of the dormitory housing. Pankisi Gorge, Georgia. 2006 Tamila, a 33-year old Chechen refugee mother of six. Pankisi Gorge. Georgia. 2006 Tamila with her children. Her family of eight people lives in one room. Pankisi Gorge. Georgia. 2006 Madonna is 53 years old and is suffering from a disease that makes her body swell with water. She has been poorly diagnosed and lacks treatment as the nearest hospital is an hour away by car. Both of her sons are in their twenties and used to sell scrap metal before the authorities moved the scrap-yard away. Now they are unemployed. The family does not have the means to pay medical and hospital bills. As Madonna’s condition disables her from moving around, she spends most of her time indoors. The family was displaced from Gagri in 1993, one of former Soviet Union’s most popular resort cities in Abkhazia. Tshaltubo. Georgia. 2006 Knife, fake flowers and Christmas decoration adorning the ceiling of a dug-out home in a refugee settlement. People cover the straw ceilings of their dug-out homes with plastic sheets and rags to stop vermin and rain. But rats, insects and snakes have found their way in. Termites are grinding through the wooden beams, and rats are eating through the mud and straw walls. People here live with the constant noises of the destruction of their own homes. Lachin Winter Grounds. Agjabedi, Azerbaijan. 2005 Wedding dress in a refugee mud-house. Agjabedi, Azerbaijan. 2005 Young refugee mother in her electrical shed home. Bibi-Heybat oil village. Azerbaijan. 2006 Chechen refugee family. Pankisi Gorge. Georgia. 2006 Refugee girl at home with former president of Azerbaijan Hedyar Aliyev poster. Sabirabad tent settlement. Azerbaijan. 2006 Train car family. With temperatures over 40 C in the summer, the doors to this train car home will not be closed for at least 3 months. During winter, conditions are equally as harsh, with coal, wood, and plastic being burned by families to stay warm inside the train cars. Vagonlar refugee community. Imishli, Azerbaijan. 2005 Refugee in the hallway of her building. Sarigaya, Azerbaijan. 2007 Woman’s hand in a communal kitchen. Agroprom refugee building. Baku, Azerbaijan. 2005 Refugee boy in the communal kitchen. Agroprom refugee building. Baku, Azerbaijan. 2005 Refugee girl. Barda, Azerbaijan. 2005 Refugee boy walking on broken edges of his unfinished building. Baku, Azerbaijan. 2005 Refugee girl looking towards light in a dug-out home. Agjabedi, Azerbaijan. 2005 Girl in front of her abaondoned train car house. Barda, Azerbaijan. 2005 Woman outside of her apartment. “Tbilisi Sea” Sanatorium. Tbilisi. Georgia. 2006