The 10 Best Photo Essays of the Month - July 2015

August 3, 2015 8:00 AM EDT

This month’s Photojournalism Links collection highlights 10 excellent photo essays from across the world, including Manu Brabo‘s powerful black-and-white work documenting the gang violence in El Salvador, where the monthly death tolls are at numbers not seen since the end of the country’s civil war 23 years ago.

Manu Brabo: Raising An Iron Fist Against El Salvador’s Gangs (The New York Times Lens blog)

Patrick Tombola: Inside El Salvador’s ‘War Without Sense’ (TIME LightBox) Tombola’s strong work, also featured in TIME’s print editions, offers an equally harsh look at El Salvador’s woes, only his photographs are in color.

Sergey Ponomarev: A Bangladeshi Town in Human Trafficking’s Grip (The New York Times) These images capture a region at the heart of a multimillion-dollar people smuggling business.

Adam Dean: Life Among the Sea Slaves (The New York Times Lens blog) Compelling pictures documenting the migrants in Thailand’s fishing industry, who labor for long hours for little pay, often in very dangerous working conditions.

Sebastian Liste: Youth Culture in Cuba (The New Yorker Photo Booth) Liste’s pictures show the rarely seen side of the Communist island state: its youth.

Yuyang Liu: At Home With Mental Illness (The Guardian) These photographs on the treatment of mentally ill in China, were just awarded the prestigious Ian Parry scholarship | Also published on TIME LightBox

Francine Orr: No room at the inn for innocence (The Los Angeles Times) Orr, a staff photographer with the Los Angeles Times, offers a searing and stark testimony on homeless children in California. Her pictures reveal the microcosm that is the Country Inn, a San Bernardino motel that serves as the last resort for those with nowhere else to go.| More photos in this slideshow.

Nadia Shira Cohen: Peru: Searching for the missing decades after war (Al Jazeera) Cohen’s moving photographs show how 30 years after the country’s bloody civil war, families of the dead and disappeared are still looking for closure.

Phil Moore: 3 Months of Political Unrest in Burundi (TIME LightBox) Strong photos examining the fragile political situation in Burundi.

Stefen Chow: Playgrounds (National Geographic Proof) Chow’s drone aerials of Singapore’s playgrounds celebrate the city state’s urban design and the delight those spaces bring to children’s lives.

Fellows of Police officer Carbín Aguilar, shoot to death by member of a gang, introduce the coffin with his remains in a funerary car in front of relatives and friends which attend to the funeral. Santa Ana, El Salvador, June 2015. (Manu Brabo / MeMo) Since January 1st the number till the day this story was finished the number of Police members killed by Gangs was up to 26. Cops are so often neighbors in areas controlled by gangs so is not so difficult for the gangs to follow and control the life of the officers. — The New York *Times*: *Raising An Iron Fist Against El Salvador’s Gangs* Colleagues of police officer Carbín Aguilar, bear his coffin to a funeral car. Mr. Aguilar was shot to death by a gang member in El Salvador. June 2015. Manu Brabo—MeMo

TIME LightBox: *Inside El Salvador’s ‘War Without Sense’*A suspected gang member in a crowded jail in San Salvador, on June 11, 2015.Patrick Tombola—Laif

Bangladesh Sergey Ponomarev — The New York *Times*: *A Bangladeshi Town in Human Trafficking’s Grip* Fishermen dig their boats from the mud while awaiting a high tide in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, on June 17, 2015. Sergey Ponomarev—The New York Times/Redux

The New York *Times* Lens blog: *Life Among the Sea Slaves* Cambodian migrant fishermen haul in the net on a Thai flagged fishing boat in the Gulf of Thailand. Adam Dean—The New York Times/Redux

The New Yorker Photo Booth: *Youth Culture in Cuba*A boxing school in downtown Havana. Feb. 2015.Sebastian Liste—NOOR

The Guardian: *At Home With Mental Illness* Nine-year-old Tong Xiao and his younger sister Ling Xiao are protecting their food box from a pig. Their mother, Tongyimg Liu, is having her dinner in the corner. Maoming, China.Yuyang Liu

FEBRUARY 11, 2015: In tears, Eddie Martinez, 14, sits under the stairwell crying at the Country Inn, in San Bernardino, CA, February 11, 2015. He is trying to help his friend Breanna. Eddie mother Noreen Gutierrez is in jail, and he wonders between a near by apartment, and the motel. He stuffed two sheets of notebook paper into his backpack. He had written, "I’m losing everything in my life for good the only thing I haven’t lost yet is my life but I hope I’ll lose it soon cause I can’t take it anymore." That night he was sitting outside around 11 pm, when the police pulled up, below Breanna’s room. Social workers followed. Breanna, her siblings, along with Eddie, were taken into social services. Eddie's is now with his father. “I Wonder if anyone would miss me when I’m Gone,” Eddie later posted on Facebook. He got three “likes” but no comments. (Francine Orr/ Los Angeles Times) — The Los Angeles Times: *No room at the inn for innocence*Eddie Martinez, 14, sits crying in the stairwell.Francine Orr—The Los Angeles Times

October 2014-Huancasancos, Peru: Libia's children who have traveled from as far as Lima participate in his funeral at a mass burial in Huancasancos. Lybia, 63 raised her 5 children as a single mom after her husband was killed 30 years ago. Both spouses were working as shoemakers in Hunacasancos and Libia had travelled to Lima with one of the children in order to buy some material for their shop. On the night of June 23rd, a group of men entered their home and shot her husband in front of the four children. She had no money to support them afterward, so they went to Lima to stay with relatives, living separately, studying and trying to find a better life. Libia supported them all cleaning houses until they were a bit older and she was able to return home and work on her family’s farm, in which she still rises at dawn to tend even though she is into her 60’s. Her biggest regret was the loss of her life’s love and for this she never remarried.On October 27 2014, after almost 30 years of waiting, the families of 80 people unaccounted for between 1983 and 1984 came from different regions of the country, to retrieve the remains of their loved ones at the Legal Medicine Institute of Ayacucho. The victims who were from various communities of Ayacucho such as Chungui, Huancasancos, Huanta, Vilcashuamán, Tambo, Canayre, and Huamanga were exhumed and identified during 2014. Many government and non-governmental organizations contributed to the event such as the International Committee of the Red Cross who provided transportation of families and coffins to the communities from Ayacucho, as well as the Peruvian Red Cross who provided shelter for many families who came to recover their loved ones from far away communities.Between 13,000 and 16,000 people disappeared during the armed violence that took place in Peru between years 1980 and 2000. Many families are still left without any knowledge of the fate of their relatives, they cannot give them a decent burial, solve off — Al Jazeera: *Peru: Searching for the missing decades after war*Libia's children traveled from as far away as Lima to take part in their father' s funeral at a mass burial in Huancasancos. Nadia Shira Cohen—ICRC

A soldier stands next to a gate painted with the Burundian flag at the Prince Rwagasore Stadium in Bujumbura, Burundi, on June 27, 2015, during rehearsals for Independence Day celebrations on July 1st. Since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced in April that he would stand for re-election, the country has been divided between loyalists and the opposition, and a split in the army has occured following the putsch attempt of mid-May. — TIME LightBox: *3 Months of Political Unrest in Burundi* A soldier stands next to a gate painted with the Burundian flag at the Prince Rwagasore Stadium in Bujumbura, Burundi, on June 27, 2015, during rehearsals for Independence Day celebrations on July 1. Phil Moore

National Geographic Proof: *The Delightfulness of Playgrounds, as Seen From Above*Stagmont Park (785 Choa Chu Kang Drive)Stefen Chow

More Must-Reads from TIME