MELI PETERSSON ELLAFI
PHOTOJOURNALIST 

Saga and Denise live in two parallel worlds simultaneously. They are two entirely ordinary teenage girls who apply makeup, hang out with friends, experience love and heartbreak, and yearn for a sense of belonging. At the same time, they reside in an area where violence is constantly present, and where they find it difficult to envision a future.

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"In ten years, I'll either have a job so I can afford my own apartment, or I'll be dead," says Denise.

Violence has been a constant presence throughout their upbringing. Even as a child, Saga witnessed up close the consequences of getting involved in the activities of gangs and later trying to break free. When she was 10 years old, she found a weapon on the schoolyard. In the doorway of her home, they often find remnants of drugs. Through social media, she and Denise witness how gang members are assaulted and killed.

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They are two ordinary teenage girls living a life where violence continually looms large.

Ukraine, Kramatorsk, June 6, 2024. The air raid siren blares constantly in the city, but life goes on as usual. The people here are used to the alarms. The war is now in its third year and has become part of everyday life. But just 20 kilometers away lies the front line — a living hell.

When a city is evacuated because the Russian army is getting too close, the military medics are the last to leave. They live in abandoned houses and fight to keep the soldiers alive, only to send them back into the war again.

“The worst part of my job is patching up a young soldier so he gets well, only to have him return in a body bag,” says Denys, a doctor working at a hospital in Kramatorsk.

In December 2022, Repower organized the first trip to Sweden — a journey meant to provide frontline military medics with a week of recovery and psychological support. After over two years at the front, many are in urgent need of a temporary escape from the war to see what they are fighting for and to regain their joy in life.

Emma and Natalie are two teenage girls living in a suburb of Stockholm. They live in a world where violence, weapons, and drugs have become commonplace. On social media, they can follow murders and assaults in real-time, all posted without filters.
The girls, moving within gang environments, have long stayed under the radar of the police.
"One can be a part of that life more or less without thinking about it or reflecting on it. You get the feeling that you're their princess, showered with gifts and presents, but in reality, you're just an accessory. The girls get bought, which later leads to them running errands," explains Emma's mother, Sara.
Emma and Natalie have, on several occasions, been asked by guys they know if they can lure boys from rival gangs to different places so that they can threaten, assault, or even kill them.

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*Emma and Natalie are actually named something else.

The climate movement’s fight has intensified. The actions this spring have been met with hatred, police interventions, and trials. We have followed Greta Thunberg and Fridays for Future from the inside during a dramatic period.

The demonstrations and the Black Lives Matter movement has spread all over the world after the death of the American George Floyd, 46, in Minneapolis. On June 7th it had reached Gothenburg, Sweden, when thousands of protesters gathered on Heden in Gothenburg in a peaceful protest to show their support for the Black Lives Matter movement. After 20 minutes police tried to dissolve the demonstation, but the protesters continued and marched through the city to continue to protest for black and brown peoples rights. It all ended up with clashes between police and protesters and about thirty people were arrested. 

The group "Street Medics" organizes workshops on how to stop severe bleeding before the ambulance arrives at the scene.
On April 10, 2022, social pedagogue Pär Plüschke was present at a fatal shooting in Skarpnäck, Sweden. That day, he stood waiting for his order at a pizzeria when suddenly, there was a loud bang. He looked out and saw a young man lying on the asphalt, bleeding heavily. Pär Plüschke called for an ambulance and rushed outside. "It was heartbreaking to see his friends." They were just screaming. "Stay with us, stay with us." They were completely overwhelmed by the situation. The young man died on the spot. The next day, Pär Plüschke met the boys again at a memorial and offered to educate them in first aid. That's how the group and the idea originated.

A cold January afternoon, brothers Robin and Alejandro Sinisalo gets attacked outside their home. A person dressed in black shoots them and the younger brother Robin gets killed. Alejandro survives but is left with injuries that makes him paralyzed from the waist down. After over 400 police hearings and a killer on the loose, the family struggles to move on. 

The Taylor Swift club 'Are you ready for it?' is tonight at Debaser in Stockholm. The club is one big tribute to the artist Taylor Swift. On stage, Stefan Stanisic is joined by Petra Huisman, playing Taylor Swift's songs and channeling the audience's energy. Because when the stage show begins, it's almost as if she is here in person.

The Swedish Synchronized Figure Skating Championships held annually to determine the national champions of Sweden. The finals took place at Kungsbacka Ice Rink in Gothenburg, Sweden, during the weekend of 22 - 23rd of February 2020.

Team Happiness were this years debutants, they competed against 17 other teams from all over Sweden.
When it's finally Team Happiness turn to compete, it all happens really fast, from when they are standing in the corridor to enter the arena and until they get their points, it's only 12 minutes and 18 seconds apart. 

Almgården is part of the forgotten Sweden. A suburb in Malmö affected by drug abuse, exclusion and unemployment. Most people living there have done so for several generations. 

Almgården is the white social housing project in which the inhabitants has been living in Sweden for generations.
Despite of this the population suffers under issues normally associated to areas with high immigration rates;
alienation, instability and language difficulties.
It is known to be one of the strongholds of the Sweden democrats, a national populist political party. A large portion of the population blame their issues on the high level of immigration in the neighboring area Rosengård.

It's only a small forrest between the two districts Zenithgården and Biskopsgården in Gothenburg, Sweden. But the difference are enormous, both in living- and football conditions. On one side of the forrest lays the residential houses, big companies and the high-income earners. On the other side lays the social housing projects, gang problems and unemployment. The two worlds clashes when the teams IK Zenith and Solväders FC meet on the football field. 

Places is built on short notes in young women and girls diaries. Were they had written down what happened on several occasions when they sold their bodys to older men. From the central of Gothenburg to rich communities in the suburbs. On public toilets, in dressing rooms in big department stores and on the playground.   

The majority of the people in the refugee camp are women and children. According to Unicef 43 000 refugee are stuck in Greece, over 20 000 of them are children.

Hungary has sealed it's frontier with Serbia, using a 110-mile long fence lined with layers of razor wire and units of army and police. 

Now hundreds of migrants – mostly Syrians, Iraqis, Afghanis and Pakistanis – wait at the Horgos border crossing in Serbia, hoping to be let in. 

Hundreds of people have massed at a closed crossing point near the Serbian town of Horgos. Hungarian police attacks migrants trying to get through the border to Hungary. 

One was shot down outside a supermarket by an unknown shooter.
Another by a childhood friend. 
A third was found naked in the forest. 
A fourth was lured in to a trap. 

In cemeteries around Stockholm, Sweden, you find the ultimate consequence of the gang war. Newly dug graves for men in their twenties who has chosen a life they believed would give them money and power. 

Amanda is 15 years old and lives in Hässelby Gård along with her father Daniel. A lot of people lacks understanding for the ways Amanda behave: why she plays truant, why she stays out late during the night, why she attend regular meetings with the social services for her anger management. 
- My mother and other people around me probably thinks i am just a junkie, that i have no future.

Amanda does not trust anyone, she constantly keeps her guard up. - When you’ve been scarred so many times, you eventually lose your trust.

Alongside her issues she has to live with the constant stress of there not being enough money to put food on the table at home.

”Affinity – a liking or sympathy for someone or something, especially because of shared characteristics.” – Cambridge Dictionarie

Affinity is a self portrait that deals with me and my ex-girlfriend. About the confidence we had in each other, but also an image of two individuals that must be separated to find our own path. Fears of what will happen and worries about what the future has to offer. Even the anxiety to always have to perform on top to be good enough. Feeling isolated in the middle of a city that boils over and how twosomeness can be both loneliness and a strength. – Meli

To me, Affinity is about facing what's outside by revealing what's inside. How the pressure from the outside is embodied and sores in your stomach. And after all, every morning I stand up, put the espresso maker on the stove and hear the steam whizzes in the valve. – Kajsa