The Visa d'or News, the most prestigious prize of the Visa international photojournalism festival for the image of Perpignan, was awarded on Saturday to Evgeniy Maloletka for his reports in Mariupol, a city in southern Ukraine massively bombed.
Very moved, Evgeniy Maloletka dedicated his prize “to the Ukrainian people”, stressing the importance of this recognition of his work.
The 35-year-old Ukrainian photographer from the Associated Press agency and his compatriot Mstyslav Chernov, 37, an AP videographer, were the first journalists to enter Mariupol on February 23, an hour before the first bomb, and the last to leave on March 15.
poignant pictures
"These 20 days in Mariupol have been like one long endless day, getting worse and worse," Evgeniy Maloletka told AFP in front of his harrowing photos of children killed, pregnant women in the rubble, mass graves dug in a hurry, unable to organize a funeral because of the bombardments.
The shelling by the Russian army of this port city of 400,000 inhabitants, in particular of a maternity hospital, has aroused indignation in the international community.
Other nominees were Ukrainian-born Australian photographer Daniel Berehulak for his "People Lived Here" (
New York Times
) report on the massacre of civilians in Boutcha, and Malaysian-born American reporter Marcus Yam for "The Fall of Afghanistan" (
Los Angeles Times
).
The war in Ukraine, central theme
Seven Visa d'or, five prizes and three scholarships were awarded during the festival.
Ukraine was one of the main themes of this 34th edition, which opened on August 27.
The Visa d'Or for the daily press went to the Danish newspaper
Politiken
for Mads Nissen's work on the war, that of the city of Perpignan Rémi Ochlik hailing the photos of Lucas Barioulet for
Le Monde
.
But the planet and its disturbances caused by human activity were also at the heart of the festival.
The Visa d'or Magazine rewarded Brent Stirton (Getty Images/National Geographic) for "Bushmeat: at the origin of epidemics", and the Yves Rocher Foundation prize, aimed at facilitating reporting on environmental issues, went to Alain Schroeder who works on Indonesia.
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The winners of the World Press Photo 2021
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War in Ukraine
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