Afghanistan, 1990

"This boy became the symbol of Aïna, the humanitarian association I founded in 2001 in a Taliban-free Afghanistan.

In 1990, the United Nations asked me to put aside my cameras in order to run a humanitarian program in an Afghanistan recently freed from Russian occupation. I had to open a route for wheat shipments needed to feed the population in the Northern Provinces. Eleven years of war against the Soviet Army had devastated the country. Fields lay fallow, roads were impassable, mined or destroyed, and buildings like hospitals and schools were nothing but ruins. I could have given away the wheat. Instead, I decided to barter it for work so as to avoid one of the unfortunate consequences of some humanitarian programs that foster dependence rather than offer new ways to live. Throughout the Province, a new army took shape. This time, men did not carry rifles but shovels."