Since Rodrigo Duterte became president last year, his brutal campaign against drugs has claimed thousands of lives. Human rights groups say he is guilty of crimes against humanity, yet that is scant comfort to those mourning loved ones.

All photos: James Whitlow Delano/Funded by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

Ginnalyn Soriano, 21, looks on as the body of her elder brother, Julius, 24, is carried away following his execution. His body showed signs that his hands had been bound before he was shot during a police operation in Caloocan, in the Metro Manila area, as part of the war on drugs.

Constantino de Juan’s seven children sit on a sofa that still bears the bullet hole from their father’s shooting. Juan was preparing a spaghetti dinner on his daughter’s birthday when he was killed.

John ‘Toto’ Dela Cruz, 16, was another victim of the war on drugs. Masked assassins pulled him out of the house in Navotas, in Metro Manila, that he shared with his 15-year-old partner, Jasmin Dorana, before shooting him four times in the head and chest on this front porch.

Dorana holds her baby, Hazel, who was born just a month before Dela Cruz was killed.

More than a fifth of the population in the Philippines lives below the poverty line. The strict Catholic country also has one of the highest birth rates in south-east Asia. More than 65% of women don’t use a modern form of contraceptive. In the shanty towns around Manila, poverty is ingrained.

Ginnalyn Soriano breaks down in tears in front of Orly Fernandez, operations manager at Eusebio funeral home, as she fills out the required paperwork following the death of her brother Julius.