Raqqa Year One

• Prize
  Silver in Press/Feature Story
• Photographer
  Thea Pedersen, Denmark
• Studio
  Thea Pedersen

Following the final battle for the liberation of the de-facto capital of the Islamic State, the cost of the victory was profound.

With 80 percent of the city laid in ruins and left uninhabitable, in 2017 Raqqa was at the point of obliteration leaving returning citizens only to find a widespread Ground Zero of apocalyptic dimensions.

As the city turned a page celebrating the first anniversary for Raqqa’s liberation in 2018, reconstruction of the war-warped city seemed barely visible, mostly in the fact that life itself had returned, and sometimes not at all. This is Raqqa Year One.