International Rescue Committee (IRC)
News, Photos & Video › Photo Essays

Photo Essays

In the absence of bridges, boats made from inner tubes and bamboo ferry passengers and goods across swollen rivers. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
An old man, made homeless by the floods, collects firewood in Pakistan’s Swat valley. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
Amjad Ali (with his neighbor Muhammad Aqil, right) has been forced to flee twice in little over a year. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
Over one million houses have been destroyed by floodwater, leaving an estimated 8 million people homeless. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
A girl sits by a damaged school in Swat district. As a result of the floods, education will be badly disrupted across Pakistan. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
A communal well filled with thick mud in Mingora. Poor sanitary conditions and a lack of safe drinking water have created the potential for serious outbreaks of disease. To help stop the spread of disease, the IRC is distributing water purification tablets. The next step is to distribute drinking water and clean wells. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
In some areas, the Pakistani army has set up makeshift lifts to ferry people across rivers. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.

A flood in the valley

Pakistan
08.25.2010

Already battered by a brutal counter-insurgency war, the people of Pakistan’s Swat Valley are now watching their lives and livelihoods washed away by flood waters.

Photos by Peter Biro/The IRC.

Launch Slideshow >
Two men walk through what was recently a large rice field near Sukkur in Pakistan’s Sindh province. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
Two children living in a makeshift camp along a highway bridge in Sukkur, Sindh province. Nearly 20 million people have been affected by the floods, which now cover a fifth of the country. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
People continue to stream into urban centers and camps. These men are packing up their families’ belongings as the flood water is rising in Sindh province. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
An estimated 3.6 million people were homeless in Sindh province alone, with numbers expected to rise in coming days. These girls are sheltering with their families out in the open in Sukkur, Sindh. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
A woman sheltering in a mosque on the outskirts of Sukkur. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.

Pakistan floods push South

Pakistan
08.24.2010

The IRC's Peter Biro took these photos in the southernmost province of Sindh, where people continue to stream into urban centers and camps as the flood water rises.

Launch Slideshow >
At least 1,600 people have been killed and a staggering 20 million people have been affected by devastating monsoon rains in Pakistan. Villages, crops, roads and bridges have been washed away by the ongoing deluge. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
A refugee from Afghanistan sits amid the rubble that was formerly his home in the Azakhel camp near the city of Peshawar in Nowshera district, Khyber Pakthunkhwa province. The entire camp, which housed some 30,000 people, was crushed by the water masses when the nearby Kabul River burst its dams. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
<p>Almost all the mud houses at Azakhel camp have been turned into clay mounds and twisted debris.</p> Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
The Afghan refugees have lived at Azakhel for decades after fleeing Soviet occupation and civil war. Now they have once again been forced to flee. Most live nearby, in tents by the side of a busy highway. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
Allah Jan (right) from Azakhel has squatted under a tarpaulin for over two weeks. “The clothes I wear are all that I own,” she said. “The local people here help me with some food, but that is all.” Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
Zubadia Razia, 20, walks through the mud and rubble that was once her home in the devastated Charsadda district. She is looking for a suitcase she kept clothes in, but it is nowhere to be found. Large areas were damaged when three rivers in the district, the Jindi, Kabul and Swat, overflowed. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
In an empty school nearby, desperate villagers await an aid distribution by the International Rescue Committee. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
A displaced Pashtun boy whose house was destroyed in the floods has sought shelter at a public building together with his family. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
Morsalin and his grandson Muaz are among the hundreds who have found temporary shelter in a school building in Charsadda. “I'm very old and remember the floods in 1955,” 80-year-old Morsalin said. “But this is much, much worse.” Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
A boy and his young sister await the distribution of aid. The United Nations has warned that a shortage of aid money is threatening six million people, the majority of them children and infants, with potentially lethal diseases carried by contaminated water. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
Hygiene supplies are offloaded for distribution to hundreds of stranded people in Charsadda. As a first step to thwart the spread of disease, my IRC colleagues distribute water purification tablets. The next step will be to bring clean water via tanker trucks to the devastated communities. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
Flood victims line up to receive hygiene supplies. The lack of soap, chlorine tablets and disinfectants, coupled with contaminated water and the lack of latrines, poses a serious health risk. Diarrhea and skin disease have already started to spread with at least one confirmed case of cholera in northwestern Pakistan. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
A woman's identification is verified at a relief distribution site. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.
Once this emergency phase is over, the more difficult task of rebuilding shattered communities starts. “The situation is desperate,” the IRC’s Pakistan director Tammy Hasselfeld says. “It will take a very long time and increased support from the outside world to help people recover from this catastrophe.” Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.

Pakistan flood crisis

Pakistan
08.23.2010

The International Rescue Commitee is delivering aid to victims of the worst flooding in Pakistan’s history and working to thwart outbreaks of waterborne disease.  Photos by Peter Biro/The IRC.

Launch Slideshow >
<p>The International Rescue Committee is on the ground providing aid to victims of the worst flooding in Pakistan&rsquo;s modern history. At least 1,600 people have been killed and a staggering 20 million people have been affected by the devastating monsoon rains. (Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC)</p>
<p>A refugee from Afghanistan sits amid the rubble that was formerly his home in the Azakhel camp near the city of Peshawar in Nowshera district. The entire camp was crushed by the water masses when the nearby Kabul River burst its dams. (Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC)</p>
<p>Almost all the mud houses at Azakhel camp have been turned into clay mounds and twisted debris. (Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC)</p>
<p>The Afghan refugees have lived at Azakhel for more than three decades. Now they have once again been forced to flee. Most live nearby, in tents by the side of a busy highway. (Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC)</p>
<p>Allah Jan (right) from Azakhel has squatted under a tarpaulin for over two weeks. &ldquo;The clothes I wear are all that I own,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;The local people here help me with some food, but that is all.&rdquo; (Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC)</p>
<p>In the first phase of a large aid effort, the IRC is going to distribute plastic sheeting for shelter, blankets, bed nets to prevent malaria, hygiene material, water purification tablets and other essential material. &ldquo;We need all that we can get,&rdquo; this man said. (Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC)</p>

Pakistan: Visiting communities ravaged by the floods

Pakistan
08.12.2010

The IRC is providing aid to victims of the worst flooding in Pakistan’s modern history. As many as 20 million people have been affected by the devastating monsoon rains. Photos: Peter Biro/The IRC

Launch Slideshow >
A soldier walks past a wrecked armored vehicle on the Sudan side of the border w
A mother and child, Darfur refugees, outside their shelter made of blankets
An elderly refugee sits in her makeshift home.
A burning pile of dead animals
A woman cooks mukhet, a seed used as cattle feed.
Hadiya Beshir Issa holds her severely malnourished 15-month old daughter Munira
A Darfuri refugee holds her malnourished son outside a health facility
Sahara, an IRC-trained midwife (left), helped deliver Ali, seen here with his mo

Darfur: A Humanitarian Disaster

Chad

In 2004, the IRC’s Peter Biro traveled to the isolated border town of Bahai – the IRC’s relief hub in Chad – and found a growing humanitarian crisis as refugees streamed across the border from Darfur. These photos chronicle that visit.

Launch Slideshow >