Plight of refugees past and present documented in series of powerful and incredible images

THESE powerful images show the experiences of those uprooted by conflict and persecution over 70 years since World War Two.

Amnesty International UK and Magnum Photos will host a new exhibition of the incredible photographs of past and present refugee crises.

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The striking exhibition will explore 1940s Greece to Syria today and will start next week on London's South Bank.

The 30 pictures from Magnum photographers show the reasons why people are forced to flee, the challenges they face on their journeys to safety and what happens when they make it.

The exhibition is part of Amnesty’s I Welcome campaign, calling on the UK to share responsibility in responding to the refugee crisis, including by providing safe and legal routes for refugees to find sanctuary here.

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The campaign also highlights the many acts of welcome and solidarity towards refugees from local communities across the country.

Tom Davies, Campaign Manager at Amnesty International UK, said: “Photography can be a powerful way of telling a story and these photos remind us that people have been fleeing conflict and persecution throughout history.

"After the horrors of the Second World War, the international community made a commitment to provide sanctuary to refugees, yet its response to the current crisis has been pitiful.

“Governments are responsible for ensuring the right to asylum, and ordinary people too have a vital role to play in welcoming refugees.

"Over the years, many people have done just that. Today, across the UK and further afield, the British public are going to incredible lengths to show solidarity with and welcome refugees."

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Tom added: “We want and need the same attitude from our government.

"There are historical examples of the UK playing a leading role in responding to refugee crises but now, while the government refuses to share responsibility with others for hosting refugees, leaving some of the poorest countries to accommodate the biggest numbers, more and more people are being forced into the hands of smugglers and into risking their lives on ever more dangerous journeys.”

Magnum was founded in 1947 by photographers Robert Capa, David ‘Chim’ Seymour, Henri Cartier-Bresson and George Rodger, who had all covered World War Two.

It will be celebrating its 70th anniversary next year.

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The earliest photographs in the exhibition are David ‘Chim’ Seymour’s images of child refugees in Greece in 1946.

Chien-Chi Chang’s photograph of a mountain of lifejackets abandoned in Lesbos was taken just earlier this year.

Others include Philip Jones Griffiths' 1968 image of a child running from a bombing raid in Vietnam, Thomas Dworzak’s Chechen refugee children playing in the snow in neighbouring Ingushetia in 1999, and Lorenzo Meloni’s recent image of a Syrian family in front of the rubble which used to be their home.

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