Pictured
‘RISKING THEIR LIVES’

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

Amnesty International UK and Magnum Photos are holding an exhibition of past and present refugee crises

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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Vietnam, Chechnya, Bosnia, Iraq, Syria all feature in the new exhibitionCredit: David Seymour/Magnum Photos
This image of Stenkovec Refugee Camp in 1999 is part of the Amnesty International and Magnum Photos exhibitionCredit: Cristina Garcia Rodero / Magnum Photos
Five boys from Promahi, Greece, in front of the refugee ship S.S Samos that evacuated children during the Civil War in 1948Credit: David Seymour / Magnum Photos

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.

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“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."

This harrowing image from the battle for Saigon shows refugees under fire in 1968Credit: Philip Jones Griffiths / Magnum Photos
In 1999 this image of Chechen refugees living in neighbouring Ingushetia was taken and is now part of the exhibitionCredit: Thomas Dworzak / Magnum Photos
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Thousands of refugees queue in food lines from CHARITAS charity in Jordan in 1990Credit: Chris Steele-Perkins / Magnum Photos
Syrian families, mostly from Aleppo, are placed in a refugee camp in Vasariste near the Serbian-Hungarian border. Picture taken in 2015Credit: Jerome Sessini / Magnum Photos

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.”

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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.

Kurdish people fleeing northern Iraq arrive at the refugee camp in 1991. More than 250.000 Kurds fled from IraqCredit: Bruno Barbey/Magnum Photos
A man stands at the scene of a fire that destroyed a plastic factory in the Khatba district of Tripoli in 2011Credit: Moises Saman / Magnum Photos
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A family stands on what is left of their home in Syria last yearCredit: Lorenzo Meloni / Magnum Photos

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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