The Year in Pictures 2009
Razed
In the past few years, control of the village of Muhajariya in South Darfur, Sudan, has changed hands several times as a result of fighting between government and rebel forces in the region. "When you get close to a village like this," says photographer Lynsey Addario, "you see women and men looking for the plot of land they were driven off, rifling through the remains of a burned-out hut, starting to rebuild. Roughly two dozen people were killed in the fighting here. I have been covering Darfur every year since 2004 and have flown over several of these scenes. The conflict has evolved into internal conflict too, with ethnic Africans fighting Africans, Arabs fighting Arabs, and the government and janjaweed stepping in to support whichever side works best for them."