Exhibition of AFP migrant crisis photos opens

An exhibition showcasing the work of Agence France-Presse photographers who have documented the hope and heartbreak of Europe's migration crisis opened in Brussels on Wednesday.

The show at the Bozar arts centre, titled "Putting a Face on the Invisibles", features dramatic and sometimes harrowing images of migrants, from Syria and Iraq to Turkey and the Mediterranean.

"When we talk about the 'subject' of migrants, the 'problem' of migrants and the migrant 'crisis', we forget the women and men behind the figures," AFP's global news director Michele Leridon said in a speech at the opening of the event.

"Now we are showing their faces. This is the work of several years thanks to the exceptional network of AFP photographers."

Stephane Lopez, the International Organisation of La Francophonie representative to the EU, said the exhibition aimed to "give these men, women and children back their dignity."

"We have to look at them, see their fear, suffering, and cold, but also the hope of a better life," he added.

About 1.4 million refugees and migrants have come to Europe since 2015, many fleeing Syria's bloody civil war, in the biggest such wave of migration the continent has seen since World War II.

Thousands have died.

Over the past two years AFP photographers captured their stories, ranging from migrants crossing the Aegean and Mediterranean in flimsy rubber boats to people crawling under barbed wire from Syria to reach Turkey and Jordan.

Other pictures show migrants who have made it to Greece then making the gruelling journey up through the Balkans through Central Europe, a route that has largely been cut off.

Efforts by the EU to tackle the crisis, and a controversial deal with Turkey, have stemmed most of the flow.

But the political fallout continues, boosting eurosceptic parties, and fuelling divisions in the bloc over how to share the burden of frontline states such as Greece and Italy where many refugees remain.

The free exhibition runs until June 11. http://www.bozar.be/en/activities/127996-putting-a-face-on-the-invisibles.

source: AFP