Postcards From Hell: 1/60

This series is a look at Foreign Policy Magazine's "Postcards From Hell, 2012: What does living in a failed state look like? A tour through the world’s 60 most fragile countries." You can read the full photo essay here. DPoH commentary on photos provided by Jacqueline, unless otherwise noted.

We open with a postcard from none other than that delightful bastion of human rights, Somalia.

Go to church, they said. Save your soul, they said.

Out of the sixty-odd images in the photo essay, I think this might be up in my top three. It's not as immediately gruesome as some of the others in the series; it's almost peaceful. And that's when it gets you--when you realise that someone didn't pose this angelic little kid in front of a backdrop, but that they found him there. That his choice was either be there or die due to drought and heat waves and inadequate food and water supplies and no relief beyond that of crumbling cathedral walls. 

That's when it becomes gruesome. That's when it becomes hopeless.