Krishan Francis

1 week ago | post-gazette.com | Eranga Jayawardena |Krishan Francis |Jill Lawless |Megan Janetsky

When she heard her front door open almost two years ago, Kostiantyn Zinovkin’s mother thought her son had returned home because he forgot something. Instead, men in balaclavas burst into the apartment in Melitopol, a southern Ukrainian city occupied by Russian forces. They said Mr. Zinovkin was detained for a minor infraction and would be released soon.

1 week ago | post-gazette.com | Megan Janetsky |Giovanna Dell'Orto |Eranga Jayawardena |Krishan Francis

SHIPLEY, England — Sitting around a wrestling ring, churchgoers roared as local hero Billy O’Keeffe body-slammed a fighter named Disciple. Beneath stained-glass windows, they whooped and cheered as burly, tattooed wresters tumbled into the aisle during a six-man tag-team battle. This is Wrestling Church, which brings blood, sweat and tears — mostly sweat — to St. Peter’s Anglican church in the northern England town of Shipley.

1 week ago | post-gazette.com | Jill Lawless |Eranga Jayawardena |Krishan Francis |Adrian Blomfield

AMORGOS, Greece — For more than 50 years, Spyridon Denaxas has prayed, worked and welcomed the faithful in an island monastery carved into a seaside cliff that’s little changed since its founding more than a millennium ago. Greece has rapidly secularized alongside the rest of Europe, and other Aegean islands like nearby Santorini are wrestling with the massive growth of tourism focused far more on beaches than churches.

1 week ago | post-gazette.com | Eranga Jayawardena |Krishan Francis |Jill Lawless |Dasha Litvinova

KAKUMA, Kenya — Windswept and remote, set in the cattle-rustling lands of Kenya’s northwest, Kakuma was never meant to be permanently settled. It became one of Africa’s most famous refugee camps by accident as people escaping calamity in countries like South Sudan, Ethiopia and Congo poured in. More than three decades after its first tents appeared in 1992, Kakuma houses 300,000 refugees. Many rely on aid to survive. Some recently clashed with police over shrinking food rations and support.

1 week ago | post-gazette.com | Eranga Jayawardena |Krishan Francis

MANKULAM, Sri Lanka — Thavarathnam Pushparani fought on the front lines for the now-defeated Tamil Tiger rebels against the Sri Lankan forces in its decadeslong separatist war and later took to clearing the land mines on the same battle lines. But the Trump administration's suspension of aid threatens Sri Lanka’s demining operations, pushing the livelihoods of thousands like Pushparani into uncertainty.