Matt Rainey

An Uncertain Future

Their eyes reflect despair and love, hatred and hope. They are the most vulnerable of victims, and the strongest of survivors.  

The Children of the Middle East wake up each morning in a world torn by ethnic, religious and political strife. Each day, they face fears no child should know.  

But day after day their numbers grow, in a demographic quickening that has transformed the Arab world into a land where fully half of the population is under the age of 20. 

Today, they watch and wait, Tomorrow, they inherit an uncertain future.  

  • On a June evening, a child runs up a hill after lighting a firecracker inside the area of Jenin Camp, also known as the {quote}Ground Zero{quote} of Jenin.  Fierce fighting with Israeli soldiers killed many Palestinians during an April 2002 incursion.
  • Ahmed Hassan kisses his youngest daughter after she awakens from her nap in tears as he sits in his tent along the road to Jericho on the West Bank. The Bedouin tribe that lives in the hills called Khar-Ahmar on the Jericho road near Jerusalem have lived there for 35 years. The 20 families on the hill try to cope with the loss of tourists, who pay for camel rides, after the recent swell of violence in the region.
  • Sejoud Toubasi and her mother Aida talk with a neighbor through the destroyed third floor wall of their home in Jenin Camp on the West Bank.  The camp was devistated during fierce fighting between Palestinians and Israeli forces in April 2002.
  • A family stands in the doorway of their home in the southeastern turkish city of Diyarbakir on a December morning.  The city, said to be the oldest in the world is unofficially known as the proxy capital of the Kurdish people. Turkey fears a possible attemp for Kurdish independence should the U.S. attack Iraq.
  • A child on the hill at Khar-Ahmar near Jericho.
  • A woman and child walk together on a street in the northern district of Damascus, Syria on a December afternoon.  Syria's economy has failed to keep pace with its rapidly growing population in recent years. Unless Syria manages to open its economy to foreign trade and investment, many analysts believe the country will be doomed to increasing poverty and unemployment.
  • Three young girls walk to school in the Baqaa Palestinian Refugee Camp near Amman, Jordan.  The camp contains approx 150,000 refugees and is the largest of the 19 official refugee camps in the Middle East and the largest of 9 in Jordan.  Jordan has been placed in a difficult position by U.S. foreign policy in the it is geographically located between Israel and Iraq and has to cope with the Israeli/Palestinian issie and the possible U.S. led invasion of Iraq.
  • In Gaza, Alaqsa University Physical Education students take exams in a makeshift building temporarily housing the school.  Plans for new facilities were halted after the 2nd intifada began.
  • Children display the Kurdish Independence sign as they walk along the top of a thousand year old wall in the city of Diyarbakir, Turkey.
  • Nine year-old Sali Samir Asan Sahin jumps from ancient rock to ancient rock at the top of a hill where the Roman Temple of Hercules, 2nd century A.D. rises in ruin in the center of Amman, Jordan.  She lives nearby and plays of the rocks often.
  • A child stands in the hallway of a squalid residential building in Gaza City.
  • The Toubasi family flees Jenin Camp to an apartment in the city where they have been staying since the April  incursion and devistation of the refugee camp by the Isaeli IDF.  Rumors swirl that tanks will be moving into Jenin following a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.  They carry goods, blankets and other belongings to the apartment.
  • Seven year-old Saja Toubasi laughs with her mother Aida inside the Toubasi home in Jenin Camp on the West Bank.
  • The Toubasi family now lives between their son's home in Jenin Camp and an apartment in Jenin City where 13 year-old Shahad stands against one of the walls in fear.  Their home in Jenin Camp has been destroyed.
  • On the Asian side of Istanbul, Turkey,  children beg for money to people coming off the ferry that travels accross the Bosphorus Straight, which separates Europe and Asia.
  • Children play on a car near the debris of Jenin Camp on the West Bank.
  • Eleven year-old Suleyman Semsiya grabs the pant leg of his friend Kadir Aktas who holds a toy gun. The chidlren warm themselves in an alley with their friend Recep Uran.  {quote}Of course we'll have real guns when we grow up..{quote} Kadir says, {quote}...in case there is a fight.{quote}
  • A young man holds up an PFLP flag at a rally in a cinema in Damascus, Syria.
  • A woman and her son watch other Muslim women walk along a street in Silopi, Turkey, a town along the border with Iraq. The town holds what is said to be the grave of Noah, builder of the biblical ark.
  • Women and their children enjoy the Mediterranean Sea in Gaza.
  • Fahed Kream lets one of his 30 pigeons free as they fly around their roost at his home in the Mahagren neighborhood in the northern area of Damascus. The neighborhood is set high on a hill above the city and consists of run down houses and narrow passageways.
  • Overview
  • Tearsheets
  • Bicycling Magazine - 2018 Buyer's Guide
  • News/Features
  • Food
  • People
  • After The Fire - 2001 Pulitzer Prize
  • After The Fire - Newspaper Pages
  • Two Familes
  • An Uncertain Future
  • Last Chance High
  • Matt at Work
  • About Matt

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