As the Syria conflict enters its sixth devastating year, here are some images showing the humanitarian work of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement in the country and on its borders.

By Dr Michael Kuhnel-Rouchouze, Austrian Red Cross Idomeni is a small village on Greece’s northern border with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and in recent weeks has become the symbol of the European migration crisis. Several thousand people from countries including Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan have been waiting here…

Siphokazi Kosopi, 24, lives in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape Province in South Africa. She is six months pregnant with her first child. Three years ago, she became seriously ill and was diagnosed with tuberculosis. …

In 2015, over one million people made difficult and dangerous journeys fleeing violence or persecution at home and seeking a better life in Europe. For many, their first encounter on European soil is with volunteers or staff from the Red Cross. Pulling people from the water in Lesvos I am Dimitrios Katirtzis, team leader for the Hellenic…

Most of the surface of the earth is covered in water. 70% of my body is water. Most of our atmosphere is water (I think). And this year, Beautiful Days was dominated by millions of gallons of the wet stuff falling from the sky and turning the ground to slop…

For men who can’t — or won’t — grow a beard, all this blathering on about how facial hair is manly or denotes prowess in bed is bloody annoying. And blog posts purporting to be written by women who love beards are always — without exception — written by men…

Anne dreamed only of Spiders. She would write these horrors down on heavy pink stock in her pedantic script and glue them between two pieces of white card. With slight – and almost impossibly tasteful – decoration, she would sell the cards through her online shop to people who remained unaware that something unspeakable crawled beneath the beauty. It helped her to know that these cards would carry messages of love, lust or familial good wishes.

The room was darker than he had hoped; the small windows smashed or thick with grime. With visions of glory and riches in his head, the doctor plunged his scalpel into the pale, scarred stomach of the woman. She screamed and screamed until she stopped. Dr Jack smiled calmly, thinking of the millions of women and babies his work would save in the future. He pushed his bloody hands around inexpertly within the cavity of the wrecked body. Slick and satisfying. She was empty. He would need another whore.

By Raefah Makki, IFRC It’s 3.30pm in Khanke, Dahuk in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. We arrive to the IDP camp with a delegation from the ICRC, the IFRC and the Iraqi Red Crescent. …