History told through a lens: 30 years of Reuters Pictures

Firefighters from Boots & Coots try to extinguish an oil well fire in Al Ahmadi, Kuwait, in March 1991, after Saddam Hussein’s retreating forces set the wells ablaze in retaliation for their defeat. Russell Boyce / Reuters

An opposition supporter holds up a laptop showing images of celebrations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, after Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak resigned in this February 11, 2011. Dylan Martinez / Reuters

US marine corps assaultman Kirk Dalrymple watches as a statue of defeated Iraqi president Saddam Hussein falls in central Baghdad, in April 2003. Goran Tomasevic / Reuters

Palestinians try to run away from Israeli soldiers firing tear gas during Palestinian-Israeli clashes in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis in this October 20, 2000. Reinhard Krause / Reuters

US president Bill Clinton with Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat after the peace accord in Washington, in September 1993. Gary Hershor

Marooned flood victims try to grab the side bars of a hovering army helicopter distributing food supplies in the Muzaffargarh district of Punjab province, Pakistan, in August 2010. Adrees Latif

Rebel fighters jump away from shrapnel during heavy shelling by forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi near Bin Jawad in this March 6, 2011 file photo. Rebels in east Libya had regrouped and advanced on Bin Jawad after forces loyal to Muammar Qaddafi ambushed rebel fighters and ejected them from the town earlier in the day. Goran Tomasevic / Reuters

Displaced people from the minority Yazidi sect, fleeing violence from forces loyal to the Islamic State in Sinjar town, walk towards the Syrian border on the outskirts of Sinjar mountain near the Syrian border town of Elierbeh of Al-Hasakah Governorate in this August 11, 2014. Rodi Said / Reuters

Reuters Pictures this month marks 30 years of capturing the joys, horrors and tragedies of the world.

In February 1985, Reuters launched its pictures service. This month, the London-based international news agency is marking this anniversary with a retrospective of some of the best images from the past 30 years.

Shown here is a selection of photographs that represent events in the Middle East during this period.

Inevitably they paint a portrait of conflict and instability; one that suggests that the problems of the region are no less intractable after the passing of three decades.

One of the earliest photographs shows attempts to contain an oil fire in Kuwait, deliberately ignited by Saddam Hussein in an act of economic and environmental terrorism after his defeat by the United States-led coalition.

The most recent shows the forced march of members of the Yazidi as they fled the violence of ISIL in Singar, Iraq, last August.

In between are the false dawns of the signing of a peace accord between Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat and the Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin at the White House in 1993, and the moment when American forces toppled a huge statue of Saddam in Baghdad in April 2003.

Neither event heralded peace in the long term for those troubled lands, nor even in the short term.

In Turkey, riot police use tear gas on a defenceless female protester in Taksim Square, Istanbul, in 2013, while Libyan rebel fighters are seen fleeing from falling shells fired by forces loyal to Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.

In the Gaza Strip, a group of Palestinians try to escape tear gas fired by Israeli soldiers. The date is October 2000, although it could have been taken at any time in the past 15 years.

Perhaps if there is any hope to be taken from Reuters Pictures at 30, it is that when the agency marks its next anniversary, the images selected will truly represent the past rather than reflect the present.