For more than half a century Eddy Posthuma de Boer – whose photograph of a child refugee in Zaire provides Broken heart of Africa with its cover – has travelled the world, a restless, curious, compassionate man, documenting the human condition. His work reflects the drama he has found there, the beautiful, the bad, the humorous and the challenging.

Born in Amsterdam in 1931, it was his portrayal of life in the Netherlands – particularly that of the capital – that first brought him public attention, in leading Dutch newspapers like De Volkskrant and Het Parool, and through international outlets like Time-Life.

Travel became his trademark, though, and he has worked in more than 80 countries for countless publications around the world, among them the glossy and iconic Dutch magazine Avenue, where his travelling companion was often the celebrated novelist and writer, Cees Nooteboom. International magazines for whom he was a regular contributor included Sphere and Sabena Revue, the travel magazines of Belgium’s national airline, and KLM’s Holland Herald.

More than a photographer, or photo-journalist, he is better described as a social documenter, a documenter of his times and especially those of the “common” people. Photography, he says, is an art form that lends itself to story telling, and what he has to tell has moved and enthralled us for decades.

“What,” an interviewer once asked him, “is the essence of your photography?

“Keihard kijken,” he replied without hesitation. “Looking hard, looking as hard as I can.” Writers like me who have accompanied him will insist we did our best to do the same but to our shame he saw more, and in infinite detail.

While he worked on assignment for publishers, he inevitably delivered more than his briefings asked for, his own insight and vision never limited by instruction. His immense archives are the consequence, the source of many magnificent photo books and exhibitions which he continues to produce to great acclaim.

Such books as Voor het oog van de wereld (Thomas Rap, 1996) and his magnum opus Het mensenlijk bestaan (Lecturis, 2015) reflect the wanderings of one of Europe’s finest photographers.

What could be termed his “humanitarian” photographs occupy a special category. Cooperation with Terre des Hommes and then the Red Cross (both the Netherlands Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies based in Geneva) saw him in humanitarian crises around the world. With the Red Cross he captured the reality of life in refugee camps and front-line communities during the violent break-up of Yugoslavia. The cover picture of Broken heart of Africa comes from his portrayal of the Kibumba refugee camp near Goma, Zaire, after the Rwanda genocide.

He went on to Iraq where half a million children were at risk – many already dying – because of shortages of food and medicine. Sanctions and a political impasse were to blame. The United Nations Security Council had imposed economic sanctions after Iraq had invaded Kuwait, and Saddam Hussein had refused to sell oil for food and medicine under UN supervision.

With no access to Iraq, most foreign media were wary of the crisis. Many suspected that reports were coloured by Saddam’s propaganda, until the Red Cross managed to get Eddy in and his graphic images helped to change opinion. There was no way to ignore his pictures: distraught mothers, malnourished and dying children, and desperate hospitals without the means to help them.

Much more followed from a driven photographer. Among his subjects: a hunger winter, poverty and environmental disaster in Tajikistan and its Central Asian neighbours. He was drawn to the slums of Haiti as well, and African urban nightmares. His powerful, intimate portrayal of street children is compelling.

The scope of his humanitarian oeuvre is breathtaking and it is time those images alone were the subject of an international exhibition. The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva would make an appropriate location.