3rd place
bronze star award
Giacomo Sini
italy 
title
On the way of Rojava
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entry description
The territory of Kurdistan, today splits some parts of Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria; the division decided after the first World War has caused the break-up of many families that once lived in the same context. This is particularly visible on a great part of the border between Turkey and Syria. After the widespread of power of Islamic State inside the Syrian civil war around 2014, the group had also started a big campaign of attacks on Rojava canton, managed by Kurds. ISIS tried, between 2014-2015, to occupy the city of Kobane, facing the fierce resistance of the kurdish YPG (People’s Protection’s Units) –YPJ (Women’s Protection Units); on January 2015 kurdish militias managed to shut out IS from the city and surroundings. Many Kurds, despite the historical repression exercised by the Turkish state, managed to escape from the territories during the IS siege, taking refuge in different parts of Kurdistan under the control of Turkey, where they found the solidarity of their own old and historical relatives. Some of them begin their difficult travel for arrive to Europe from here. On the other hand some people have continued to live in Kobane city despite the destruction caused by the conflict. Some others, nowadays, are still living in Turkey try to get back in Kobane. International medias have covered the situation inside this part of Middle East, sometimes only referring to militaries activities and war, forgetting to document the difficulties faced by the Kurds in a constantly escaping life. The photographs want to tell a "visual travel" about these people, starting its own point from the city where they’ve escaped passed afterwards through a life in a refugee’s camp, close to the road which connected their life to the recent past in Rojava, destroyed by the war.about the photographer
Giacomo Sini born in Pisa, (Italy) in 1989. In 2014 he obtained a degree in social sciences at Pisa University. Traveler, has passed through fifty countries photographing the social and political realities. Passionate about the Middle East and Central Asia, has photographed many times the reality of conflict in these lands, focusing primarily on the struggles of the Kurdish population in the territories where it has established. He has lived in Istanbul for a month in 2014, carrying out a photographic project for the Netherlands Institute In Turkey about the gentrification of certain neighborhoods of the city. Giacomo participated at the master in “Contemporary photojournalism 2014-2015” at "Officine Fotografiche Roma" in Rome, where he was chosen to expose his reportage of Kobane and Kurdish refugees at the national exhibition of "Fotoleggendo 2015”. His works has been poublished by EL Pais, Die Zeit, Repubblica, The Week, News, Internazionale, Vice Magazine, NZZ, Left. Today is living in Livorno, (Italy) but he sometimes moves to Turkey and Rome, (Italy).back to gallery
