Dario Mitidieri, Italy

Lost Family Portraits

"March 2017 will mark the 6th anniversary of the beginning of the war in Syria. More than 470,000 people have died since. In all, 11.5% of the country's population have either been killed or injured. 45% of the population have been displaced, 6.36 million internally and 4.8 million abroad. This is the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era. 

Lost Family Portraits aims to tell the story of those who have lost family members in the Syrian war, and who have made their way to the refugee camps in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon.

The empty chairs or spaces in the photographs symbolise the missing family members.

Lost Families Portraits is a reminder of the of the destructive power that war has over families.

It is also a testimony to the 1.5 million refugees who are left behind in Lebanon, who cannot afford to buy their way into Europe and who have nothing to go back to."