In the northern part of Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region is the town of Akre. Here a former prison was once used by Saddam Hussein's regime to hold Iranian prisoners of war and political dissidents. Now converted into a shelter, known as the Castle, it holds more than 1,000 Syrian refugees. A stronghold of Islamic State militants in Iraq is less than 50 kilometres away.

2016 marked the 30th anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the world’s worst civilian nuclear accident. An explosion followed by fire in the Chernobyl 4th reactor released a radiation plume 400 times more radioactive than the Hiroshima bomb. The radioactive cloud drifted over Ukraine, Belarus and Russia as well as large parts of Central and Western Europe.

On one side of the Greek-Macedonian border lies the Greek village of Idomeni. It’s nestled between rolling hills and the local population stands at about 150 people. One kilometre east from the village some 13,000 refugees and migrants lived in tents and improvised camps during the spring months of 2016.

Yad Vashem, POLIN & Auschwitz-Birkenau Holocaust memorials as physical reminders of past crimes. International Holocaust Remembrance Day - January 27 - United Nations General Assembly designated the day to commemorate Holocaust victims. The date coincides with the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.

Polish Independence Day celebrations at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw. Demonstrators and right-wing groups wave Polish flags during the annual march remembering Poland's National Independence Day.

Surviving in front line towns and villages in eastern Ukraine had resulted in civilians living in fear and desperate conditions – on both sides of the conflict. Rocket and artillery fire not only damaged residential areas but also left people with no access to water, gas and electricity. Heavy fighting saw locals take shelter in basements while in other cases hospitals were evacuated – leaving many with emotional and psychological traumas.

Pro-Russian separatists of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic in the city of Donetsk during Victory Day parade. Tanks, grad rockets, and other military hardware were driven through the city marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe on May 9.

Ukrainian soldiers and civilians leave Debaltseve behind. Ukrainian soldiers feel a mixture of relief and distress as they withdrew from the Battle of Debaltseve. Some had walked 20 km through fields to avoid roads that had been mined. In no man’s land schools and buildings remain deserted.

In the Donbas region coal extracted from small and dangerous mines provides a lifeline in the form of much-needed money and heat in war-torn eastern Ukraine. In rural parts of the country during winter coal is used as a heating source, which is considerably cheaper than other energy forms.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was a scheduled international passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. On 17 July 2014 it was shot down, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board. Debris fell in area controlled by the pro-Russian Donetsk People’s Republic at the time of the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

The Donetsk Peoples Republic was declared by the Donetsk Republic's organisational committee after it organised its own referendum. The move was condemned by Ukraine’s government in Kyiv and the West.

For Abkhazians the arrival of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia seemed an opportunity for global recognition. A self-proclaimed sovereign state recognized by only a few countries – this hidden nation is just a few miles from Sochi.