Although Iran's eight-year war with Iraq ended in 1988, it is still an immediate memory for the civilians who sustained permanent injuries during the conflict, and continue to suffer in silence.

These stunning images of survivors of the war were taken by photojournalist Mehdi Monem over the past 12 years.

Monem was a war photographer who captured images of frontline combat in the Iran-Iraq war. After the conflict ended, he dedicated his time to documenting the lives of the survivors, many of them injured and disabled.

This collection shows landmine victims, civilians caught in aerial bombardments of urban areas, and those poisoned by the chemical weapons deployed by Saddam Hussein. Many are women; others were children at the time of the attacks.

The pictures come from areas along Iran's western border - the provinces of Kurdistan, Khuzestan, Ilam, West Azarbaijan and Kermanshah. They include images from Sardasht, in West Azarbaijan province, which in June 28 1987 became the first Iranian town hit by a gas attack, and one of the worst affected, so much so that it become known as Iran's Hiroshima.

An exhibition of these photos, sponsored by the International Committee of the Red Cross, was held in the Rah-e Abrisham (Silk Road) Gallery in Tehran on May 14-25.

Another collection portraying the present-day lives of war veterans injured in the conflict was earlier published in book form as "The Miracle of Hope". Although government propaganda speaks of keeping the memory of the war alive, Monem's book was not well received and in the end he had to fund its publication himself.