Bosnia flooding Silvia Longhi
Bosnia and Herzegovina 2014
M
ay 2014. Severe floods hit Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, leaving more than 70 people dead and hundreds of thousands roofless. Caritas, like other NGOs, was active since the very beginning of the emergency, monitoring and reporting on the situation and delivering aid to the population. The reportage follows Caritas operators “caschi bianchi� in their on field activities and documents the conditions of cities and towns along the path of the Bosna River from Sarajevo to Samac two weeks after the floods.
Silvia Longhi / BiH 2014
M
ud and water from rain-swollen rivers across the region covered one fourth of the Bosnian territory and caused thousands of landslides that destroyed entire villages. The economic damage caused by the disaster - barely mentioned by the media in Italy and central Europe - was estimated at 1.3 billion euros (over 7.5% of GDP) in BiH only. Once more, 20 years after the end of the war, the Balkans face destruction, and people have to start working on reconstruction.
Silvia Longhi / BiH 2014
Silvia Longhi / BiH 2014
Silvia Longhi / BiH 2014
“ The situation is somehow worse than after the war: damage caused by bombs was localized, while water destroyed everything “ - a citizen of Doboj declared. In cities like Doboj and Maglaj, all the ground floor houses and facilities went under water in only a few minutes.
Silvia Longhi / BiH 2014
ABOUT Silvia Longhi is an Italian photographer with a passion for reportage. Born in 1984 in Treviso, where she is based today, she started working as a photographer after graduating with high results in Multimedia Science and Technology. She gets interested in photojournalism as an intern at the Associated Press photo desk in Rome, and in 2007 she moves to Barcelona to work in a fashion photography studio. In Spain, she engages in street photography focusing on intercultural dialogue and local traditions. Since her return to Italy in 2009, she has combined the profession of still life and architecture photographer and digital retoucher with the investigation of cultural and social issues through travel and reportage photography. www.silvialonghi.it