ROSS TAYLOR

photo stories: left behind

Each year scores of children are orphaned or left without a parent due to the conflict in Indian-controlled Kashmir. This story focuses on one orphanage in the summer capital of Kashmir. The orphanage is one of many in the region.

Ishfaq Khan suffers from an infected wound. Many of the orphans in Kashmir don't receive proper health care.
   
Hilal Ahmad lays bored one afternoon at the orphanage.The children are often left with little to do with their time.
   
(l-r) Mozam Iqbal, Nasir-Ul-Islam, and Waqar Ahmad have lunch at the orphanage.The children receive three nutritious meals each day, meals they may not otherwise receive if they were living on the streets.
     
  
Zahoor Ahmad looks up during morning prayers before heading into school.
  
Children rest together on a balcony of the orphanage. The kids learn to rely and lean on each other, as they become their new family.
   
Children line up outside the orphanage before heading off to school. The students go to school six days a week.
     
  
Light pours in and is highlighted in the colored cups the children use for an afternoon snack and drink.
   
Basit Bashir, left, and Tahir Javid play a make-shift cricket match outside the orphanage.
   
Early each morning the orphans pray in a mosque built inside the orphanage. The children have to wake before sunrise to participate in these morning prayers.
     
  
The children spend time with the employees of the orphanage one afternoon. Since the children have lost a sense of family, the staff often serves as a replacement.
   
Imtiyaz Ahmad looks out the window from his bedroom. He, like so many other orphans, face an uncertain future.