Seeing Is Believing; A roving photojournalist documents global suffering.(iWitness by Tom Stoddart)(Brief Article)

Byline: Ginny Power

The neutral gray cover of "iWitness" (347 pages. Trolley ) leaves readers unprepared for the horrors that lie within: searing black-and-white images of some of the world's worst suffering, from the famine in Sudan to the siege of Sarajevo to Rwanda's civil war to the scourge of AIDS in Africa. In one photo, an orphaned Rwandan girl clings to her sleeping younger brother atop a pile of volcanic rock. In another, an elderly Indian woman sits before a cracked wall, awaiting aid after a monstrous earthquake. Shot by British photojournalist Tom Stoddart, the images are linked by loss and anguish. In some cases they juxtapose life and death with brutal clarity: a Kenyan family weeps over the tiny coffin of an AIDS victim, a cellist breaks down after playing a requiem to a dead friend in a Bosnian cemetery. But even amid the devastation, there are signs of hope: Two siblings in an African feeding center share a smile and a hug. In a Sarajevo suburb, a woman ...