Ammar Yassir, now 19 years old, received his first camera as a gift just three years ago. Less than two years later, he and his family were forced to flee the war in Sudan. Since then, Ammar has been documenting his life in exile.
Since the outbreak of renewed violence in Sudan in mid-April 2023, over 400,000 Sudanese people have fled to South Sudan. Ammar Yassir and his nine-member family also arrived at the reception camp in the border town of Renk, South Sudan, on December 17, 2023. Even then, the camp was severely overcrowded, and the hospital was completely overwhelmed with the influx of wounded refugees. There was a dire shortage of food, water, and medical care. Rates of malnutrition and undernutrition were extremely high, and the lack of sanitation facilities further worsened the health situation for what has now become millions of people in the camp.
The young documentary photographer Ammar Yassir stayed there for 26 days after his parents and six younger siblings returned to Rabak, Sudan, just a few days later. The conditions in Renk were even more dangerous than in Sudan itself.
Due to war, climate change, food insecurity—or a combination of all three—people in South Sudan and Sudan are extremely vulnerable and embark on difficult journeys to flee. The majority of refugees from both countries are now in neighboring Uganda, Ethiopia, and Kenya. Ammar is one of them.
We get to know each other through video calls, while I sit comfortably at my dining table in Hamburg-Altona, he leans against a wall in a refugee hostel in Kampala, Uganda. He tells me how beautiful the city is: the pleasant climate, the kindness of the people. In the background, I hear the voices of many other hostel residents. When I ask him who all the people behind him were, he simply replies that they are not his family. He then mentions that his little sister died of malaria at the end of December, and that he is doing everything he can to get his family out of Sudan—ideally to Libya—to bring them somewhere afer, before anything even worse happens.
But really, Ammar doesn’t talk much about the difficult situation he has been through and is still facing. He rarely mentions the separation from his family, the extreme experiences in the refugee camp, or the daily struggle of being a freelance photographer on the run in a foreign country. Instead, he talks about cameras, prints, and is eager to understand exactly how FROM operates. He passionately discusses his projects.
He shares how he started documenting the lives of the refugees around him. His project "26 Days", named after the time he spent in the camp, gained significant attention in 2024. He became recipient for the prestigious Ian Parry Grant, a scholarship that supports young photojournalists.
And he shows that flight does not only mean loss, but also new beginnings and hope: his new project “Hope After War” documents the lives of refugees who are gaining a foothold as entrepreneurs in their new home country and building a new life for themselves. The focus is on independent women and young people who were displaced by war as children and are now building a future for themselves .
For FROM, we initially chose two self-portraits that were taken during migration. The edition is open and can be expanded to include further self-portraits. Ammar Yassir has most likely only taken the first stage of his path as a photographer and person forced to flee.
“Rabak” shows Ammar, centered and mirrored in the rear window of the van that was to take the Yassir family from Rabak, Sudan to South Sudan. The motif depicts the moment on December 17, 2023, when everyone is waiting for the father and other riders before they finally set off for Renk in South Sudan. The motif is available as a Fine Art Print on matt Hahnemühle Photo Rag in the formats 30 x 40 cm and 56 x 60 cm.
“Kampala” is the portrait format in which Ammar can be seen in front of the window of a SIM card store. He arrived in the Ugandan city the evening before, on September 13, 2024. The next morning, he joined the long queue in front of the store so he could be in contact with his family again. The multi-layered picture is available as a large-format poster and as a Fine Art print, in a limited edition of 50 pieces, each.
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Learn more on the current situation in Sudan: In DLF
Ammar Yassir’s Instagram: @ammar._yassir
