Brothers without a father
January, 2020 - Sincai-Fânațe, Romania
I visited the family with a Calvinist pastor and a social worker. Unfortunately, I couldn't bring a camera with me, so I documented the hour we were there with my cell phone.
After the father of the two boys destroyed all his personal documents, such as identity cards, bank cards, etc., he hanged himself in the nearby forest. He was found a week after the sad incident. Under his body were the torn documents.
No one knows exactly why he killed himself. With a small group, we visited the mother and her sons, with gifts for the boys. The mother needed help because she owed the Romanian state. She cannot access the money in her husband's account for the above reasons.
She does not know how to solve the schooling of the older child. But the fact that the husband sold the car before he committed suicide is also a problem. The nearest settlement with a doctor, shop, and post office is 6-7 km away, which takes several hours to walk on the dirt road in extremely poor condition, and the return home takes the same amount of time and fatigue.
Among other things, she received help to understand official documents in Romanian, because he only speaks Hungarian, and food for about a week. Fortunately, none of the children are sick now, so no medical attention was needed. The boys would be most happy to have their father back.
© Text and photos by Gergely Hando, 2025.