“They’ve been obsessing me for years. I searched and found them in Benares, on the banks of the river Gange (India). They arrive here to get rid of everything and to wait for death. This existence can last for years, sometimes decades, almost a life. Opposite to mine, well organised and filled as a human life can be, to try in vain to push the limits of its end”. – Denis Rouvre. (Photo by Denis Rouvre)

Twenty-four-year-old Maryam Aghayee makes hyper-realistic baby dolls acting as surrogates for some Iranian families who are apprehensive of having more children. “It has been about three or four months since I started this work”, says Maryam in Tehran, Iran on October 7, 2020. “After making my second doll, many orders have been coming in. The second doll was much more realistic than the previous one. After making my second doll, I said that from now on I can take customer orders. I did not intend to start a business from the beginning because it was a hobby, but after the second doll, the demand for these kinds of dolls increased, customers want to have such dolls”. (Photo by Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters)

A bomb squad member wearing heavy equipment leaves the explosion site at the Yasukuni shrine precints in Tokyo, Japan, 23 November 2015. More than 100 police, firefighters and officials gathered at the site after an explosion was heard in the toilets of the Yasukuni Shrine, a controversial war shrine in the capital Tokyo. Local media reports said police found possible traces of an explosion, as well as batteries and wires at the shrine. There were no reports of injuries. (Photo by Franck Robichon/EPA)

Secondary school students perform a barefoot “pilgrimage of suffering” to support the Occupy Central civil disobedience movement at the Admiralty protest site in Hong Kong November 30, 2014. It has been two months since police first fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators from the main protest site in the Admiralty district next to government offices in the heart of the Asian financial centre. (Photo by Bobby Yip/Reuters)

A man reacts as he holds the equipment used by Palestinian cameraman Hussam al-Masri, who was a contractor for Reuters, at the site where he was killed along with other journalists and people in Israeli strikes on Nasser hospital, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still image taken from a video shot by Reuters contractor Hatem Khaled, who was wounded shortly afterwards in another strike while he was filming the site on August 25, 2025. (Photo by Hatem Khaled/Reuters)

A Christian pilgrim prays during her visit to the baptismal site known as Qasr el-Yahud on the banks of the Jordan River near the West Bank city of Jericho April 9, 2015. A day ahead of Orthodox Good Friday, the Easter period draws many Christian tourists to visit well-known religious sites, including Qasr el-Yahud, where it is believed John the Baptist baptised Jesus. (Photo by Amir Cohen/Reuters)

A policeman wields his baton at an autorickshaw rider as punishment for breaking the lockdown rules, after India ordered a 21-day nationwide lockdown to limit the spreading of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Mumbai, India on March 25, 2020. (Photo by Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters)

A volunteer tries out a protective suits for health workers, at the International Islamic University Malaysia in Gombak, outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Friday, April 10, 2020. The Malaysian government issued a restricted movement order to the public for the rest of the month to help curb the spread of the new coronavirus. (Photo by Vincent Thian/AP Photo)