Azernews.Az

One of the world's leading photojournalists has expressed his support for the Many Happy Returns (MHR) campaign at www.manyhappyreturnsidp.com.

New York-based Ed Kashi has spent the last 30 years photographing the human impact of conflict around the world. He is the Co-Founder of the VII Photo Agency, and his works have been published in the National Geographic, Newsweek, Time and The New York Times, amongst other leading publications, AzerTag state news agency reported.

Ed was the winner of the World Press Photo competition in 2011, and in 2010 won both the UNICEF Photo of the Year award and the Prize Pictet, a global photographic prize.

His seven books of photographs have been published across the world, and Photojournalism - his latest publication - is viewed as a definitive reference book on this subject.

Ed recently documented the difficult lives of Azerbaijani IDPs and refugees in four camps for a project entitled Unresolved Dreams. He remarked: "I've seen this in person - a truly heartbreaking situation. Good idea to run a campaign highlighting the IDPs' plight. Wish you all the best."

This UK-based MHR initiative is aimed at raising awareness of the ongoing plight of the estimated 875,000 Azerbaijani internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees who are the victims of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.

The title of the campaign is based on the English birthday greeting 'Many Happy Returns' which, in this case, also refers to the wish of the Azerbaijani IDPs and refugees to return to their rightful homeland.

The website features photos of IDPs in just three of the camps spread across the 76 regions of Azerbaijan, taken by the renowned German photographer Philipp Rathmer.

The MHR website also gives the ordinary people the opportunity to pledge their support for a campaign to re-designate 'UN World Refugee Day' as 'World Refugee and IDP Day'.

Armenia occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions, after laying territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor that caused a brutal war in the early 1990s. Long-standing efforts by U.S, Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.

The UN Security Council has passed four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been enforced to this day.