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Pictures from Afghanistan — the powerful and poignant war photography of David Pratt

He has hiked across the Hindu Kush mountains and hidden out in caves with guerrilla fighters. In Kabul he was an eyewitness to the factional struggles that ravaged the city out of which the Taliban would rise.

For going on four decades David Pratt has covered conflicts around the world making him one of Scotland’s most highly regarded journalists and war photographers. Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are among many of the world’s trouble spots in which he has worked. By his own admission though, nowhere has made more of an impact on him than Afghanistan.

Premiered at this year’s Glasgow Film Festival, 91Èȱ¬ Scotland documentary Pictures From Afghanistan follows the photographer’s intimate association with the country and its people as he returns to places where some of his most memorable images were taken.

As Afghanistan still struggles to find an elusive peace, here are a selection of his powerful and poignant photographs taken during the 1980s and 1990s.

Afghan guerrilla fighter passes Soviet vehicle destroyed in an earlier ambush in the Sanglakh Valley (1986)
Patients left alone at Marastun Asylum after staff fled during fighting in the district were left to look after themselves (1994)
A family flees across the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan on their way to become refugees in Pakistan (1988)
Two young Afghan fighters share a joke during a lull in fighting in fierce factional in Kabul (1995)
Mujahideen guerrillas emerge from cover following Soviet air bombardment, in the mountains of Parwan (1986)
Hungry civilians jostle for food aid from a newly arrived UN convoy in besieged Kabul (1994)
Stuffed statue of a goat and a tank sit in the battle-scarred entranceway to Kabul Zoo that sat on the frontline (1995)
Travelling with Afghan guerrillas during the Soviet war often involved long and exhausting marches along what were known as the 'jihad trails' (1986)
Much of Kabul lay in ruins at the height of what became known as the ‘civil war’ period in Afghanistan in the mid 90s (1995)
Jamiat-e Islami fighter exchanges gunfire with rival faction in the destroyed Russian Science and Cultural Centre on Kabul’s frontline (1995)
Many Afghan have been maimed during decades of conflict and been fitted with prosthetic limbs (1995)

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