A Capacity to Endure

A Ugandan migrant working in South Sudan picks his dinner of beans and ugali—a staple made of bleached cornmeal—from his living quarters, February 2013.

Buses are stacked to obstruct sniper fire at an intersection near the far end of a corridor patrolled by a regime sniper in Aleppo, Syria, May 2013. Sniper fire is less frequent in the morning and early afternoon—the times when most activity occurs. Even still, the risk is real and people are shot on a daily basis and at all times.

A young Syrian girl walks alone through the destroyed streets of rebel-held territory in Aleppo, Syria, May 2013.

A South Sudanese man reads the Koran as the sun rises over Abyei, a disputed territory torn between Sudan and South Sudan, October 2013.

A young South Sudanese man holds his five-year-old daughter as they flee Malakal, South Sudan, out of the fear that fighting between government and opposition forces will once again tear through the town, April 2014.

A sick South Sudanese man rests in the road after the bus he and others are riding breaks down in the bush. The passengers are fleeing the impending fighting between opposition and government forces in the nearby town of Malakal, South Sudan, April 2014.

An Iraqi family fleeing ISIS fighters who stormed their village of Tel Afar wait in 110 degree heat in the hopes of entering the relative safety of the Kurdish Region of Iraq, July 2014.

A Yazidi woman who had been cornered by ISIS on Mt. Sinjar for 11 days cradles her grandchild in a refugee camp in Al-Malikiyah, Syria, August 2014.

Ishmael, an asylum seeker from Senegal, eats a meal in his room in a government-run house in Rome and watches a pot of water for tea, September 2014. “My day is just waiting. All I do now is wait.”

Asylum seekers rest in a registration point in Augusta, Italy, immediately after arriving from Libya by boat, October 2014.

Dust covers the face of a young migrant headed to Libya, April 2015.

A migrant prays in the headlights of a pickup truck carrying him through the Sahara to Libya, April 2015.

A truck carrying migrants to Libya drives across the Sahara a few hours north of the desert outpost of Agadez, Niger, July 2015.

A young Syrian girl climbs to the top of a water tank as the sun sets over Domiz Syrian refugee camp outside Duhok, Iraq, September 2015.

Residents of Domiz Syrian refugee camp walk through the street as smoke rises from a fire in the distance in Dohuk, Iraq, September 2015.

A Syrian mother washes her hands with her two daughters beside the train tracks where thousands of refugees are stuck in Idomeni, Greece, March 2016.

Refugees help a young boy across a river outside of Idomeni, Greece, March 2016. Some 1000 refugees gathered and marched out of camp in the hopes of rushing a break in the border with the Republic of Macedonia in order to continue their journey north to countries like Germany.

A young boy tries to hold an umbrella up against the wind and rain in Idomeni, Greece, March 2016.

A young man carries a child through the hills outside of Idomeni, Greece, March 2016.

A mother guides her two daughters through the freezing rain and back to Idomeni, Greece, March 2016. After attempting to break through a section of the border, refugees were detained for the night by Macedonian border authorities and forced to walk back to camp the next day.

A Capacity to Endure

May - June 2016

Photojournalist Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin ’07 explores notions of identity and place in conflict zones where statelessness and forced migration prevail. His images and reporting, which have been featured in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Time magazine and Al Jazeera, reveal as much about the tragedies that take place in conflict zones as they do about the human capacity to endure. “The stories that interest me are the ways that daily life continues and the way families continue to grow, people get married, love continues to persist—all in the midst of displacement and war,” Knowles-Coursin says.

View more of Knowles-Coursin’s images in our May/June 2016 issue.

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A Capacity to Endure

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