![Two women watch as the body of their kin is examined by police after masked assailants barged into their home and dragged him into the streets and shot him in Manila in September 2016.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/dondi-tawatao-philippines-drug-war.jpg?quality=85&w=2400)
More than 7,000 people in the Philippines have been killed in President Rodrigo Duterte’s campaign against drugs since July. According to statistics released by the country’s national police, cited by Rappler and Human Rights Watch, more than 2,500 of those slain in the offensive were suspected drug dealers and users; another 3,600-plus were killed by unidentified vigilantes. As the nightly warfare has intensified, so has the haunting coverage by local photographers. TIME asked 12 of them—working independently or for the various wire agencies—to mine their archives, select a picture that particularly impacted them and detail its significance.
Here, their pictures and harrowing accounts: “I Am Seeing My Countrymen Die.”
More Must-Reads from TIME
- Eyewitness Accounts From the Trump Rally Shooting
- Politicians Condemn Trump Rally Shooting: ‘No Place for Political Violence in Our Democracy’
- From 2022: How the Threat of Political Violence Is Transforming America
- ‘We’re Living in a Nightmare:’ Inside the Health Crisis of a Texas Bitcoin Town
- Remembering Shannen Doherty , the Quintessential Gen X Girl
- How Often Do You Really Need to Wash Your Sheets?
- Welcome to the Noah Lyles Olympics
- Get Our Paris Olympics Newsletter in Your Inbox
Contact us at letters@time.com