A black-and-white photograph shows a 6-year-old Iraqi girl lying in a hospital bed, her bald head swollen as a result of terminal leukemia; her open eyes, puffy and blackened, see nothing.

Another photo shows a mother holding her leukemia-stricken boy, blood streaming from his nose, in a hospital in Baghdad.

These heart-wrenching images, taken last year by freelance photographer Naomi Toyoda, were part of a recent exhibition in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward. For the past two decades, Toyoda, 46, has been shooting photos of Palestinians, refugees and the everyday lives of people in the Middle East.