Robin Hammond’s study of the mentally ill in Africa, “Condemned,” started with a chance encounter.

Mr. Hammond, a New Zealander living in South Africa, was covering the independence referendum in Juba, South Sudan, about a year ago. He drove past a mentally disabled girl begging on the street and asked someone what would become of her. He was taken aback to hear that the mentally ill in Juba were simply warehoused behind the formidable stone walls of the town’s central prison. So he began digging, focusing his energies and his lens on how mental illness was addressed in several African countries – South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Somalia and Kenya.

“We often cover war, famine, natural disasters, but leave when the peace treaty is signed, the rains fall, the floodwaters recede,’’ said Mr. Hammond, 36, who is based in Cape Town. “Rarely do we talk about the long-term mental health impacts of these crises in Africa. I was in South Sudan to see the birth of a new country — it was meant to be a happy moment, but many people were still struggling with the consequences of the war.’’

Robin Hammond/Panos Pictures

His work would take him through many war-ravaged areas, including a remote outpost deep in the Congolese jungle where civilians continue to get kidnapped and massacred by a bizarre and quite brutal rebel group called the Lord’s Resistance Army.

The army started out 25 years ago as a somewhat popular rebel outfit fighting for the rights of a minority people in northern Uganda. But over the years, it has degenerated into a band of homicidal maniacs who now roam across the borderlands of Sudan, Congo and the Central African Republic – three of the most spectacularly failed states in the world. Today, the Lord’s Resistance Army specializes in abducting children and turning them into killing machines. One of the most searing moments of this project, Mr. Hammond said, was meeting a young Congolese girl who had just escaped their clutches.

“Simba Merci,’’ Mr. Hammond said, “was clearly traumatized. As she spoke about her ordeal we understood why. She told us of daily beatings and forced marches through thick forest, of executions and being forced to commit acts of violence against other members of the kidnapped group to punish them for talking, or walking too slowly. She told us how she was forced to hold people down as they were killed and once how she was made to kill another child.’’

Robin Hammond/Panos Pictures

At the end of Mr. Hammond’s time with Simba, the girl begged Mr. Hammond to take her with him. “She couldn’t stay another night in the village,’’ Mr. Hammond said. She was terrified of being kidnapped again.

If this sounds depressing, it is. But Mr. Hammond, who funded most of this work himself, hopes to hit people hard with these photos and strove to create a sense of urgency. He has posted the images on his Web siteto publicize the work, and hopes to mount exhibitions in Europe and the United States and at the United Nations.

And there were some happy moments too. One of the highlights, he said, was finding a mentally ill man in Hargeisa, the capital of the autonomous region of Somaliland, in northern Somalia, who had been chained in a shed for 11 years. Mr. Hammond brought a local aid organization over to evaluate the man, and soon enough the man’s family unchained him. Today he walks by himself to a clinic to receive medication. He even helps around the house and cares for himself. Mr. Hammond said it was incredibly gratifying, after all that he witnessed working on this project, to be able to have such a positive impact on one man’s life.

Mr. Hammond is represented by Panos Pictures. This project is currently featured on the crowd funding site emphas.is .