Cost of Conflict

As a young child, Cheryl Hatch dutifully watched the nightly news with her mother, brothers and sister, scanning the black-and-white footage, hoping not to find her father's face among the dead in Vietnam. Later, in pajamas, she knelt beside her bed and prayed for God to bring her father and the other soliders home safely.

As a young woman, Hatch followed in her father's footsteps. She went to wa--but armed with a camera. Her first war, a "civil war safari" in Liberia in 1990, changed her focus from that of a combat photojournalist, who nonetheless eschewed war-waging weapons, to the women and children caught in the crossfire--the widows, orphans and refugees who suffer the long-term consequences of war and the cost of conflict.

In Iraqi Kurdistan, she met homeless Kurdish women and children, forced into refugee camps by Saddam Hussein and his anfal campaigns--the abduction and conscription of men and boys. Uncertain if they'd see their husbands again, the women eked out an existence and stripped the countryside of its last remaining trees for firewood.

The Cost of Conflict documents the dignity and courage of the people who struggle to survive war's ravages and its aftermath, and people whose lives have been disrupted by it. Through the media, we are exposed to the immediate consequence of war upon military personnel. But who are the other victims whose lives have been interrupted and changed forever? Hatch poignantly captures the desperation and devastation experienced by the non-combatants of war-torn countries. The Cost of Conflict surveys areas in the Middle East and Africa. 

Cheryl Hatch

Cheryl Hatch bought her first camera in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia when she was fresh out of high school and eager to travel. As she journeyed through India, Iran and Thailand she realized that her photographic passion was people. The social activism component in photographer Lewis Hine's work has been a major influence on her photojournalist career.

Hatch has covered conflict in the Middle East and Africa since the early 1990s, including the aftermath of the Gulf War in Iraq, the famine and subsequent U.S. intervention in Somalia, and the fragile return to peace in Mozambique and Eritrea. Her award-winning work has been published in Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, Paris Match and many other U.S. and international publications.

As the daughter of a decorated Army veteran who served 30 years in the U.S. Army and two tours of duty in Vietnam, and as a war photographer, Hatch has profound personal experience and empathy for military families, the sacrifices and hardships they endure, and the proud traditions by which they live. In its 2001 Memorial Day issue Newsweek published Hatch's "The Soldiers Serve, the Families Sacrifice" in their "My Turn" column.

Cheryl Hatch holds a MA in Visual Communications from Ohio University. She has a BA in Journalism and in French from Oregon State University and studied French Literature and Egyptology at the UniversitÈ de Poitiers, France. 

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