A man with broken glasses and a shovel over his shoulder takes part in a WFP (World Food Program) “Food for Work” project in Hazrate Sultan in Badakhshan, cleaning an irrigation channel from mud, 2003.

An Egyptian holds up newspaper fronted with a picture of former President Hosni Mubarak and the Arabic headline, “Finally he steps down”, at Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, February 12, 2011.

An art student paints the Facebook logo on a mural commemorating the revolution that overthrew Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, Egypt on March 30, 2011.

Two boys glare down on the site of Napata, the capital of the Kushite kings, situated at the foot of Jebel (Mount) Barkal in Sudan, March 2005. The excavations of the hill and its surrounding area uncovered several temples, a mud brick palace-complex, pyramids, and other kinds of tombs. Nine temples are identified; the biggest one is dedicated to the Egyptian god Amun. Many of the temples are decorated and have carved hieroglyphic inscriptions. The pyramids are part of the royal Napatan-Meroitic cemetery. This photo was previously published in National Geographic Magazine France, Germany and Spain, 2005. -Manoocher Deghati

Boys from villages around Gulu in Northern Uganda gather in community shelters in the town of Gulu every night to avoid being abducted as child soldiers by the Lord’s Resitance Army. 2006

Portrait of an old Nubian villager whose shadow forms the shape of a pharaoh, holding a stick. His village at the 4th Nile cataract is going to be flooded by the newly constructed Merowe Dam project in 2007. The villagers are resettled in ready-built concrete settlements in the middle of desert. Northern Sudan is the homeland of one of the oldest cultures in Africa. The so-called “Black Pharaohs” from Nubia ruled over Ancient Egypt as the 25th Dynasty. The Nubian people, now mainly Muslims, still live in the region. The inhabitants of the villages along the shores of the Nile, with their characteristic, beautifully painted houses, keep the old traditions alive.

Men beat their chests with fists at Ashura ceremony in Kabul, 2003. Ashura commemorates the death of Imam Hossein, son of Ali, who was killed by the Kalif of Baghdad in Kerbela in 680 AD.

Men sit on the roof of an overloaded taxi on the road to Kunduz, 2002. Transportation in Afghanistan is, due to 20 years of civil war, in a poor state. This situation is a further obstacle to the already struggling economy.

An elderly inhabitant of a village in Badakhshan, Afghanistan, votes for the first time in his life at the Loya Jirga elections. The Loya Jirga election process in the Northeastern provinces of Afghanistan in 2002. Manoocher spent two months as UN monitor in this area where 21,000 villagers were chosen, village-by-village, to the time the pool was narrowed down to 1,500 elected delegates who made their journey to Kabul. There they gathered for nine days, and after much debate, ultimately in early June 2002 fostered the election of President Hamid Karzai and the establishment of the Transitional Authority.