Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
Paul Botes

Creator

Paul Botes

Guest Author

A member of the Coldstream Guards walks past a bed of flowers during the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II on 19 September.

The year in pictures

The Mail & Guardian’s pictures editor, Paul Botes, presents some of the most striking photographs taken in 2022

  • Paul Botes
1 min read
A U.S. Air Force aircrew, assigned to the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, assists qualified evacuees aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III aircraft in support of the Afghanistan evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Afghanistan, Aug. 21, 2021. The Department of Defense is committed to supporting the U.S. State Department in the departure of U.S. and allied civilian personnel from Afghanistan and to evacuate Afghan allies to safety. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Taylor Crul)
PHOTOS OF THE YEAR

The year in pictures

Mail & Guardian pictures editor Paul Botes presents some of the most striking images of 2021

  • Paul Botes
Provincial government says it cannot deal with the magnitude of the damage to infrastructure alone. (Photo by RAJESH JANTILAL / AFP)
ZUMAUNREST

In pictures: Destruction, despair … and intrigue

The images that reflect a week in which the country erupted into total chaos

  • Paul Botes
AYABONGA QEKEKA

Joyce Jokanisi: The life and death of a Marikana Titan

Joyce Jokanisi died without knowing who killed her son in Marikana and while still battling with heartache and depression from the massacre

  • Niren Tolsi
  • Paul Botes
9 min read
BEIRUT

2020 in pictures

Mail & Guardian pictures editor Paul Botes presents some of the most striking images of 2020

  • Paul Botes
3 min read
Shabby treatment: Community workers such as Mathapelo Kubheka have not been paid since June. (Paul Botes/M&G)
CHW

Health workers fight without fuel

Community health workers are at the frontline of the fight against Covid-19 in Gauteng, but many have not been paid for months. Sarah Smit and Paul Botes talked to workers who…

  • Sarah Smit
  • Paul Botes
6 min read
Comfort at a price: “Isuzu D-MAX 300 LX 4X4” is exactly the kind of name a bakkie gets when it exhibits quiet luxury on the roughest of roads and costs R640 000.
AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION

The bakkie that made me ‘that guy’

The Isuzu D-Max 300 LX 4×4 may be quite a mouthful. But on the road, it’s a dream to drive

  • Paul Botes
3 min read
BORDER CONTROL

Porous border is smugglers’ paradise

<b>Sean O’Toole</b> and <b>Paul Botes</b> take a journey along the border from Pontdrift to south of Komatipoort to find the gaps in a broken system.

  • Sean Otoole
  • Paul Botes
15 min read
PAUL BOTES

Where ‘funny things’ happen

Paul Botes recounts his experience at a meeting of South Africans preparing for disaster.

  • Paul Botes
3 min read
Bhonani Mayixhale, the matriarch of the family. She has since died. (Paul Botes/M&G)
2009 ELECTIONS

A long, hard wait

Before the 2004 elections the Mail & Guardian visited the Mayixhale family in a village outside Lusikisiki in the Eastern Cape.

  • Mandy Rossouw
  • Paul Botes
7 min read
Novumile Moti, Bongiswa Zembe and Nosango Siqiniwe reflected in a mirror in their studio. Photograph: Paul Botes
2009 ELECTIONS

In search of MaMbeki

Mandy Rossouw and Paul Botes went looking for Thabo Mbeki’s mother in Idutywa and came away feeling there’s only one Cope supporter in town.

  • Mandy Rossouw
  • Paul Botes
3 min read

At the coalface

The Mpumalanga highveld is big-sky country. Low green hills slouch slowly towards wide, clouded heavens.

  • Lynley Donnelly
  • Paul Botes
6 min read

Luyt at the coalface as Gauteng coaches quit

WEDNESDAY, 11.00AM: GAUTENG Lions rugby coach Ray Mordt and his assistants Tito Lupini and Hugo van As resigned and refused to coach the team on Tuesday, blaming some “senior…

  • Lynley Donnelly
  • Paul Botes
1 min read