A special kind of hell is reserved for mothers during war. In March 2003, this Iraqi woman, like everyone in her doomed country, knew that it was only a matter of days until their lives would be devastated by a looming and unstoppable US invasion. With US shock and awe bearing down, many, like this woman, sought treatment for their sick children in local hospitals.
A member of Mothers of the Disappeared, Comadres, keeps watch during her shift as part of a 24-hour-a-day vigil at the group's San Salvador headquarters. The sandbags were laid to blunt attacks by US-backed death squads as the women organized to protest family members' death or imprisonment.