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.
newsdesk@thenational.ae
