These photographs were taken in the Middle Jubba Valley of southern Somalia in 1987-8 as part of my ethnographic research in the village of Banta. As Somalia's civil war spread into the valley in 1991, many Jubba Valley villages were targeted by armed militia and over the course of that decade tens of thousands of survivors fled the valley for refugee camps in Kenya. These refugees are known as Somali Bantus, an ethnic category recognized with official P2 (persecuted minority) status, and many have been resettled in the United States. Many of the refugees from Banta now live in Lewiston Maine. Photographs by Jorge Acero.
