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.
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