Hamed Malekpour, Iran
Iran: One heart, two lives
About 25,000 people in Iran are on the waiting list for donor organs. According to official statistics, almost 1,000 transplants were performed in 2018. The hidden dramas behind these numbers usually go unnoticed by the public. One of these stories, in which beauty and pain lie close together, has been captured by Iranian photographer Hamed Malekpour.
It is the story of Sajjad Darwishali, a nine-year-old boy who was fatally injured after being run over on the street in his home town. After being declared brain dead, his family decided to donate both his heart and liver, the cornea of his eyes and his kidneys to people in dire need. Sajjad’s heart was successfully transplanted to a ten-year-old boy in Tehran who had been suffering from an arterial disease for four years, which led to a life-threatening myocardial disease.
Malekpour captured the fate of two children and their families in images of great sorrow and equally great relief.
Photographer: Hamed Malekpour, Iran
Hamed Malekpour, born in Abhar in 1990, studied photojournalism and has worked for Iranian news agencies for over a decade, as well as for AP, Agence France Presse and Reuters. His photo series mainly cover current political topics from his home country. Malekpour lives in Tehran.