How would you describe 2017 from your point of view of a news photographer?

I think 2017 has been a tough year for the world in terms of war, disaster, human rights abuses, refugee crises and famine. Even people who live in once stable countries are facing terrorist attacks. I feel no one feels safe these days.

Did you have a favourite assignment this year?

I put my heart into every story I work on, but the ones I feel the strongest about are those that put me in touch with people – subjects that are related to people’s struggle for their rights. I want to push the viewers to recognise themselves in the pictures of someone else’s pain or joy. That first moment of recognition.

A story I covered in Somalia accomplished this for me – it was not about war but about a woman’s struggle. Zainab, a beautiful 14-year-old girl, had been forced by her mother to marry an old man who offered $1,000 as her dowry. The dowry made it possible for her extended family to get to Dollow, a Somali town on the Ethiopian border where international aid agencies were providing food for those fleeing the drought, saving the lives of the whole family.

Zainab could not bear her husband and wanted a divorce. “I would rather die. It is better that I run into the bush and be eaten by lions,” she said. Zainab wanted to finish school – she wanted to be an English teacher and did not want to be married. Her husband would accept a divorce only if the family gave back the dowry, which was not possible.

Zeinab’s English teacher knew about the situation and took her to a local aid group, which in turn took her to the Italian aid group Cooperazione Internazionale. The regional coordinator, visiting on a trip with EU donors, decided to intervene.

Do you approach stories in a particular way?

I approach people with respect. Whatever their status, I have respect.

I do my best to show people with dignity, I communicate that I am not there to look for sensational photos. I am obsessed by depicting an event as it happens in front of me. Being a woman can make things easier – I feel that people confide in a woman more readily.

I started as a photographer in my own country, Algeria, during the conflict in the 90s. As well as covering the war, I was directly affected and I lost friends and relatives. About 200,000 people were killed, including civilians, members of the elite, police officers, soldiers, journalists. Later, when I started going on international assignments, I found many similarities with what I had experienced in Algeria. I came to understand that no matter the nationality or religion, human reactions are the same everywhere. My experience in Algeria taught me to cover stories humbly.

How to do you approach switching between different stories and places.

As long as I am concerned with humanity and life, my heart is there. The places, nationalities, even the types of stories, are secondary. I have no judgment when I approach people and take them as they are. I think to be able to do this job we need to accept difficulties. It’s impossible to make a success of what we set out to do unless we can do that.

Are there particular communities that you have made relationships with in your work as a photojournalist?

Everywhere I go I always imagine myself in the place of others – to be able to feel their pain or even their joy. I always tell myself that what happens to them can happen to any of us. If I don’t feel the moment, I don’t think anyone will be affected by my photographs. I still have contact with people in each country I’ve worked in, but my main focus is that I want to make people understand that whatever people’s nationality or religion is, human beings are the same.

Iraqi forces were pushing Isis fighters in western Mosul back towards the old city. The forces had to find a way to help civilians escape. The Mosul airport road was one way out. Reuters had a team there and civilians arrived in small groups. We were waiting when we saw an Iraqi Humvee coming down the hill from a liberated district carrying wounded people. It stopped in front of an ambulance. I photographed Iraqi federal police officers carrying victims. I tried to find out what happened but nobody seemed to be sure. A second Humvee arrived with more victims. Someone said they had tried to shelter from the sun, waiting for humanitarian aid in a shop, but theshutter was booby trapped and it exploded.

As the battle between Iraqi forces and Isis to liberate the west of Mosul became increasingly ferocious, the flows of civilians fleeing their city intensified day after day. Refugee camps were filling up quickly. The child was crying because he was exhausted and hungry. He sat with other displaced civilians in one of three buses that were transporting them to a camp. But the federal police brigade in charge of sheltering them were struggling to find places in the camps. They had made checks, but all of them were full. I took this picture at sunset. I fear the displaced families were still far from the end of their ordeal.

On the outskirts of western Mosul, Khatla Ali Abdallah had fled the battle with Isis. Her fearful eyes were red with fatigue and she was so exhausted she could not stand or sit. The 90-year-old had been carried across the desert by her grandsons, under sniper and mortar fire, one of thousands who braved the dangerous journey out of Isis’s shrinking stronghold. She looked like she had not eaten or drunk for a long time.

I had tears in my eyes as I took the picture. I felt bad because I could not do anything for her apart from take photographs to show the world the agony and torment of people trying to flee Mosul to safety. I imagined this woman as my own grandmother and felt helpless that I couldn’t do anything to make her comfortable.

I was fortunate to find Ali Abdullah a few days later in a refugee camp after showing people my photograph of her. She has survived decades of turbulence in northern Iraq, but said the fighting was “the worst I have ever seen”.

She made me smile when she expressed her remorse about the 20 chickens she had to leave behind. Ali Abdullah had looked after them, even while hiding from crossfire in her basement. Despite all the terror she experienced under Isis rule, it had not destroyed her humanity – she said “even animals deserve life”.

The Reuters team was waiting at an Iraqi special forces checkpoint on the outskirts of western Mosul for permission to go to their command base to cover the frontline. It was a field clinic run by foreign volunteers. It seemed calm. It was still early. We were talking to one of the foreign medics when suddenly a special forces Humvee came at speed towards the checkpoint. It was four injured civilians - two women, a man and a boy. They seemed in shock. The woman could not answer my questions. She seemed lost in thought. I smiled to comfort her and help her understand she was safe. A soldier told us they were hit by mortar fire as they fled fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State fighters.

The Reuters team waited almost all day behind Syrian Democratic Forces members, who were fighting Isis in Raqqa to lead us into this building. They had posted themselves there temporarily and they took it after fierce fighting. It was just a very short distance from Isis’s position. Whenever a building or a district was taken from the jihadis, the soldiers would exhibit their black flags like spoils of war. That day they found two black flags. I heard them arguing with each other over whether to burn them. Some soldiers refused, saying that the words on the flag contained text from the Qur’an and was thus sacred.

Covering the Rohingya crisis was exhausting. The accounts of those who managed to flee Myanmar affect your morale and make you feel helpless. All you can do is photograph the situation to try and create a reaction in those who have the power to change the situation, and to sympathise with their pain as human beings. You can do nothing else.

I went to a tent set up by the Bangladeshi army that had been converted into a delivery room. I wanted to check information that was given to me, that some pregnant Rohingya woman who had been raped by soldiers were due to give birth that day. There were three women there who had given birth. None of them confirmed the information, but there were some pictures to capture.

One of them was holding her newborn baby while sitting on the floor. She was answering my colleague’s question but at the same time she seemed worried. Her baby was crying a lot and she covered him completely with a piece of cloth while trying to give him her breast. He refused it and was trying to free himself from this piece of cloth, pushing it out with his foot. When he managed to free one of his feet, he stopped crying. It was a moment that made us all laugh – a a moment of joy, of hope, in the general chaos. It perhaps reminds us that life is not only pain.

Algeria elections
That day I visited several polling stations in Algiers. The legislative elections had not attracted many people to vote, and this year it seemed worse than the previous elections. I felt frustrated: the pictures I had were boring and I was still looking for one that would show the situation. Usually when I have a good photo I feel it from inside. I was looking for pictures that would shake us out of the torpor. I had to document the event as it happened, but there were very few voters. I wanted to show this with an interesting picture, so my task was difficult. I visited five polling stations that day and the atmosphere was the same in each. In the final one, I started chatting with polling station workers who seemed to be happy to see me – they were probably also bored.

Suddenly a woman with her son in a Batman costume arrived. It was an almost surreal moment and I finally had that feeling that I usually have when I feel that a good photo is almost there. I approached the woman to ask permission to follow her. Her child quickly got used to my presence and wanted to show me that he was as strong as Batman. I was deeply happy. This photo makes me feel that Algeria is not an isolated country but is connected to the rest of the world, but also that the legislative elections needed something like a saviour. The child dressed as Batman symbolises precisely this; his generation is the one that will shape the future of the country.

When I shared the image, one of my Algerians friends said: “Batman is ready to do justice in an Algerian polling station”. I felt the same way about the photograph.

A wedding in Khazer camp near Mosul
I always want to show the human side of conflict, so I do not like to focus only on the front line. I want to show how civilians react, suffer, resist conflict and how they survive despite the chaos. That day I chose to cover the wedding in the camp.

When I heard their age difference I was shocked. Chahad was only 16; Hussain Zeeno Zannun 26. But hearing their story lessened my concerns. Chahad’s parents, who didn’t want to leave Mosul, had allowed their daughter to flee the fighting against Isis with Hussain, her neighbour. They wanted her to leave for her safety. Chahad and Hussain also had a common dream and they were engaged with her parents permission.

They shyly made me understand that they loved each other. The marriage was celebrated despite the absence of Chahad’s parents, but was properly celebrated as it should be, in the presence of many people in the camp.

Hussain wanted to marry Chahad to protect her. Locally it’s thought that women must not live under the same roof as a man who is not a family member. I learned two things from this story: that Isis failed to kill love and how loyal Hussain was.