Here are some photos I took whilst working in Rojava in North East Syria recently. For more of my photo work, go to jakehanrahan.com.

New recruits to an all-Arab unit of the YPJ (Women’s Protection Units) march around the grounds of their academy in Ain Issa.

A toy gun and a makeshift ISIS flag confiscated from children in the al-Hol camp.

Rohave, 19. She lived under ISIS in her home town of Deir Ezzor, where she saw Yazidi slaves being traded like cattle in the streets. Her own brother was a member of ISIS. When the area was liberated by the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) she fled and joined the YPJ in a bid to help prevent the brutality she witnessed under ISIS from happening again.

A member of the Asayis (internal security forces) in Raqqa patrols the ruins of the city.

Portraits of fighters who died fighting ISIS pinned to a wall in Kobane.

One side of the gates in Jinwar, a women’s village in Hasakeh canton built by hand with traditional methods. Jinwar acts as a refuge for women from all over Syria.

Raqqa Asayais.

Figurines made by the women of Jinwar hang in the entrance to one of the communal living spaces. The figurines are inspired by those made in women’s refuges in Africa.

Ain Issa YPJ.

The colours of Rojava—red, yellow, green—hang from the power-lines in Kobane.

The entrance to a tunnel built into the side of the road somewhere in Rojava—a preparation taken in the chance that neighbouring Turkey invades the region.

Reading the coffee silt.

Female Asyais at a checkpoint in Qamishli, two weeks after the city’s third car-bomb in as many months.

ISIS “Brides” from the Caribbean. They both laughed when talking about Yazidi slaves, saying the women enjoyed the abuse.

Young women working the fields of their farming co-operative.

Welcome to Raqqa.

A corner shop in Terbispyê.

An Arab woman (on the left) who joined the YPJ and took the codename “Kurdistan”. She lived under ISIS when they controlled Manbij. She was caught wearing a small white belt with her Niqab and sent to prison, where she was whipped 1500 times by three ISIS prison guards. She said it took three of them as they were getting fatigued from whipping her so hard.

Sehid Zana, a young man killed at 16 whilst fighting alongside his friends as they battled ISIS. Zana was the brother of Xebat, our fixer.

Xebat Ebas, our fixer and translator in Syria. Watching her work was one of the most educational experiences of my life.