An article devoted to the work of Zeitenspiegel reporter and photographer Carsten Stormer.

Syrian refugees in Lebanon tell tales of of torture, execution, and sniper fire. They have escaped the terror and random violence. That doesn’t mean they’re welcome in Lebanon.

People who clean public toilets in the city of Lucknow are “untouchables” whose “impure” status is passed down from parents to children. The Indian government is finally doing something about it.

The civil war in Syria is destroying the country. Once vibrant cities are now ghost towns. Scenes from a war of attrition.

The tide is turning for Syria’s rebels. In the small town of Azaz in the north, they kept government troops holed up in a mosque for weeks. And won.

On an island in Papua New Guinea, there are people who catch sharks without nets, hooks, or harpoons. They are known as shark-callers.

Text and photos: Carsten Stormer

Appeared in Esquire Philippines, April 2012

In Papua New Guinea, belief in sorcerers and black magic is widespread. Hundreds of accused practitioners are killed every year.

Fishermen hunted them. Conservationists saved them. Now ecotourists are hugging them to death. The whale sharks of the Philippines.

Hold it. Feed it. Change it. Listen to it scream. In a school project in Bremen, teenagers are learning what it’s like to be responsible for an infant 24 hours a day.