06/07/2026
I have spent much of my career covering conflicts, famine and displacement. When a crisis first begins, there is often an enormous amount of international attention.
Journalists arrive, cameras appear, aid organisations mobilise. The world watches. Then, slowly, something changes. The cameras leave.
Editors move on to the next breaking story. Public attention shifts elsewhere.
The crisis, however, continues.
Some of the most difficult assignments I have worked on have been in places experiencing what we call protracted crises. These are emergencies that do not last for days or weeks. They continue for years, sometimes decades.
Somalia is a good example.
The country has endured cycles of drought. There was the devastating famine in 2011, followed by repeated droughts since then. Families who had already lost their livestock were forced to start again, only to lose everything once more.
For the people living through it, the crisis never really ends.
The challenge for those of us documenting it is that the photographs begin to look familiar.
There is a danger that audiences begin to think they have seen it all before.
We have to keep asking ourselves how we can tell these stories differently.
Most importantly, it means remembering that behind every so-called "ongoing crisis" are people whose lives are changing every single day.
The story may feel familiar to us. For the people living it, every day is entirely new.
