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From Mexico to Libya to Nigeria to the Philippines, it was a year of war and endurance, of tragedy and hope. BuzzFeed World was there.
ABU GREIN, Libya — A howling wind filled the air with sand, enveloping the small desert outpost. Shivering from the January cold, a skinny, bedraggled man in mismatched desert camouflage fatigues, a scarf wrapped around his face, took a deep breath and stepped forward. He tightened his grip on his AK-47 as the car pulled up to the checkpoint. Without a helmet or bulletproof vest, he warily approached, asking for identification papers, searching for weapons and checking the trunk. This time there was nothing inside, save for some rope and a few empty burlap sacks, likely to be filled with wheat or barley for the drive back. He relaxed, and waited for the next car to arrive.
Just a few years ago, the land around this outpost, 180 miles southeast of the Libyan capital of Tripoli, was a nature reserve where the deposed leader, Muammar al-Qaddafi, and his entourage would come for retreats, hunting for wild game. The spacious villas that housed them are dotted around, now empty, looted for their gaudy fixtures and fittings. Inhabitants of a nearby village have mostly fled. Once a sleepy patch of desert, Abu Grein has now become the front line against the Libyan branch of ISIS, a gathering force now threatening to demolish what’s left of the country.
Stringer / AFP / Getty Images
WASHINGTON — One day last year, a team of U.S. soldiers working in the military’s special operations drone program sat tucked away in a secret facility discussing the rapidly accelerating campaign against ISIS.
One of the operators was asked about collateral damage assessments in a war that is rooted in U.S.-led airstrikes and that is increasingly being fought in urban centers — cities still crowded with those who have not joined the millions who have fled places like Syria and Iraq. ISIS, meanwhile, has used that to its advantage, moving military assets into cities to hide them among the remaining civilians. How, a U.S. intelligence official asked, did they decide when there were too many civilians present to risk the strike?
“‘As long as it’s under 10,” a soldier said, “we’re good to take the shot.”
Fede Yankelevich for BuzzFeed News
ABUJA, Nigeria — “One of our daughters may be returning to us.”
It was an otherwise ordinary spring evening in Abuja when the text message flashed up on Esther Yakubu’s phone, and suddenly she was filled with hope — and fear.
As she always did when she got a message like this, she ran through what it might mean: Could it be that, after two long years, she might finally hear her missing daughter’s voice again? Was Dorcas about to return to reclaim her place in the family as big sister to her five siblings? Would this bring an end to the sleepless nights spent imagining her daughter’s fate at the hands of a sect that has burned schoolchildren alive?
Afolabi Sotunde for BuzzFeed News
APATZINGÁN, Mexico — The thermometer hit 98°F as the women peeled and sliced hundreds of mangoes inside a nondescript factory in western Mexico on a recent Sunday. They dipped the wedges into a chili mix, leaving their gloved hands looking as though they were covered in blood, like something out of a bad horror film.
Shards of natural light and a few flies seeped in through the gaps between the corrugated metal roof. A sweet aroma filled the factory, empty save for a few tables and tray racks. For the next three hours, the women worked to make dried fruit, washing, cutting, and placing it. There were around 40 of them in all, ranging in age from their twenties to fifties, some rail thin, others bulging out of their cotton tops. A few were chatty and curious about visitors; others kept their heads down and avoided eye contact.
But they all had one thing in common: Their husbands and sons had been killed, had disappeared, or are on the run amid the violence that has engulfed the city of Apatzingán in Michoacán State. Barely any of its 123,000 inhabitants have escaped untouched by the drug wars. Some of the women are widows of cartel members; all have had their lives torn apart.
Meghan Dhaliwal for BuzzFeed News
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